Todd Gordon, Jeffery R. Webber - Blood of Extraction - Canadian Imperialism in Latin America-Fernwood Publishing (2016) 2

Blood of
Extraction
Blood of
Extraction
Canadian
Imperialism in
Latin America
Todd Gordon &
Jeffery R. Webber
Fernwood Publishing
Halifax & Winnipeg
Copyright © 2016 Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Editing: Candida Hadley

Cover design: John van der Woude
Printed and bound in Canada
Published by Fernwood Publishing

32 Oceanvista Lane, Black Point, Nova Scotia, B0J 1B0
and 748 Broadway Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3G 0X3
www.fernwoodpublishing.ca
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Federation for the
Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program,
using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Fernwood Publishing Company Limited gratefully acknowledges the financial support of

the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the Manitoba Department
of Culture, Heritage and Tourism under the Manitoba Publishers Marketing Assistance
Program and the Province of Manitoba, through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, for
our publishing program. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Province of
Nova Scotia to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova
Scotians. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last
year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Gordon, Todd, 1973-, author
Blood of extraction : Canadian imperialism in Latin
America / Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55266-830-6 (paperback).--ISBN 978-1-55266-845-0
(epub).--ISBN 978-1-55266-846-7 (kindle)
1. Mineral industries--Political aspects--Latin America.
2. Mineral industries--Social aspects--Latin America. 3. Mineral
industries--Environmental aspects--Latin America. 4. Mining
corporations--Latin America. 5. Mining corporations--Canada.
6. Investments, Canadian--Latin America. 7. Economic development--
Latin America. 8. Imperialism. 9. Canada--Foreign economic
relations--Latin America. 10. Latin America--Foreign economic
relations--Canada. I. Webber, Jeffery R., 1977-, author II. Title.
HD9506.L292G67 2016 338.2098 C2016-903185-3
C2016-903186-1
Contents
Acknowledgments — ix
Part i Introduction — 1
1. Velvet Gloves and Iron Fists — 2
Imperialism without Colonies — 4
Ecology and Racism — 9
Neoliberalism — 11
The Expansion of Canadian Capital — 15
Canada’s Strategic Engagement with Latin America — 18
Development Aid — 24
Corporate Social Responsibility — 26
Extractive Commodities and Militarized Neoliberalism — 27
Structure of the Book — 29
Part ii central America — 31

2. Authoritarian Capitalism: The New Normal in Honduras — 32
Historical Foundations — 34
Cold War Counterinsurgency — 36
Neoliberal Pacification — 38
Violent Insecurity — 42
The Zelaya Interregnum — 45
Ottawa and the Democratic Coup — 48
The Tegucigalpa-San José Accord — 51
Sanitizing State Violence — 55
Canada on Human Rights — 58
Ethnographies of Opposition — 61
Canadian Capital in Honduras — 64
The Economics of Canada’s Strategic Engagement — 76
Free Trade Agreement — 78
Conclusion — 81
3. Mining in the Wake of Genocide: Canadian Corporations in Twenty-First Century Guatemala — 85
Historical Portrait — 86
Canada and the Re-Emergence of Mining in Guatemala — 93
Dialectics of Resistance and Militarization — 107
Conclusion — 118
4. Dispossession and Security in Central America — 119

El Salvador — 119
Costa Rica — 128
Nicaragua — 135
Panama — 140
Towards a Regional Security Agenda — 142
Conclusion — 145
Part iii the Andes — 147

5. Canada’s Evil Hour in Colombia — 148
Historical Backdrop — 150
Special Violence of Extraction — 158
Canadian Investments and Grassroots Resistance — 161
Janus-Faced Free Trade — 175
Development Aid as Trojan Horse — 179
Conclusion — 181
6. Agonies of Mineral Dependency in Peru — 182

Mining Boom — 183
Water Stress — 185
Historical Backdrop: Race, Class, Geography, Terror — 186
Fujimori and Authoritarian Neoliberal Rule — 190
Continuities in Post-Fujimori Peru — 192
Canadian Mining Conflicts: The Cases of Tambogrande and Ancash — 193
Violence and Eco-Destruction beyond Tambogrande and Ancash — 197
Humala’s False Promise — 200
Candente Copper and Cañariaco Norte — 203
Canadian Mineral Diplomacy — 204
Conclusion — 207
7. Tapping the Veins of Ecuador — 208

The Shifting Political Winds of the Correa Government — 212
Birth Pains of the Neoliberal Mining Order in Ecuador — 216
The Embassy Makes its Move — 223
Mining Mandate — 225
The New Mining Law — 232
The Sanctity of Foreign Investments — 239
The Uses of Aid — 240
Conclusion — 241
8. Venezuela’s Threat of a Good Example — 243
Canadian Capital in Venezuela — 245
Who Was Chávez? — 248
Charges of Autocracy, Clientelism, and Decay — 250
Canada and the Authoritarian Drumbeat — 251
Canadian Media and Venezuela — 256
Canada’s Engagement with Post-Chávez Venezuela — 258
Conclusion — 258
9. An Exercise in Cynicism: “Democracy” and “Security” in the Andes — 260

Democracy Promotion — 261
Security Policy — 271
Conclusion — 275
Part iv Conclusion — 277

10. Expansion Continues, Resistance Persists — 278
Geographies of Canadian Capital — 278
Human Rights and Ecology — 282
Notes — 287
Index — 367
Todd Gordon dedicates this book to his mother, Barbara Gordon
Jeffery R. Webber dedicates this book to

his parents, Roger and Elaine
Acknowledgments
I n the course of researching and writing this book we relied on an expansive net-
work of friends, family, activists, journalists, and scholars. Without this collective
infrastructure, Blood of Extraction would have been impossible.
In Canada, we presented early iterations of our research at Ideas Left Out, as
well as consecutive Historical Materialism conferences in Toronto. Thanks to
Paul Kellogg and Abbie Bakan for their organizational efforts in arranging our
presentation in the former venue, and to the Toronto organizing team of Historical
Materialism for their support in the latter forum. David McNally, Greg Albo, and
Henry Veltmeyer shared their expertise and offered us crucial support at various
stages of the research process. Geoff McCormack shared data on domestic Canadian
profit rates. Dawn Paley read our manuscript closely, and made available to us her
first-hand knowledge of Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. Jennifer Moore
of Mining Watch provided us with important information on mining throughout
Latin America generally, as well as specific contacts and ideas for our research on
Ecuador. Kevin Thomas from the Maquila Solidarity Network in Toronto offered
his knowledge of Canadian operations in the Honduran garment sector. Todd
benefited greatly from Spanish lessons and regular conversations with our friend
and comrade Carlos Torchia, a lifelong participant in the struggle for a better world.
Carlos generously shared his knowledge of, and passion for, Latin American history
and politics. Melisa Breton and Caren Weisbart offered their exceptional translation
and transcription skills for many of our field interviews in the Guatemalan case.
Jeffery also relied on his parents Roger and Elaine Webber, to whom he dedicates
this book, as well as his sisters Elizabeth, Ruth, and Theresa. Olga Shustyk, Gerry
Dykstra, and Rebecca Dykstra were consistently supportive.
In the United States, Greg Grandin and Noam Chomsky demonstrated yet again
their selfless solidarity with and support for dissident research projects such as ours,
ix
x Blood of Extraction
as did Sinclair Thomson, Charlie Post, and Forrest Hylton. Dana Frank showed
enthusiasm for our research and provided us with contact information and ideas
for our research trips to Honduras. Gerardo Renique, an expert on Peru, provided
us with leads and resources on the mining sector in that country. Bhaskar Sunkara
offered space in the pages of Jacobin for some of our early, exploratory writings
on Honduras and the rest of Central America, and enthusiastically agreed to read
our manuscript.
In Honduras, Karen Spring went above and beyond reasonable expectations in
her assistance to our research, and fed us a steady stream of insights on the intricacies
of Honduran politics. Her intimate knowledge of the country’s social movements
opened up new worlds that would otherwise have remained outside our reach.
In Guatemala, Grahame Russell of Rights Action, a leading solidarity organiza-
tion working with communities resisting Canadian extractive projects in Central
America, shared with us his intimate knowledge of the country, including its scars
from centuries of imperialism, and introduced us to many of the heroic activists in
the country who continue to fight, often at great personal cost, for social justice.
In Ecuador, Michelle Báez, Alejandra Santillana Ortíz, and William Sacher were
instrumental in supporting our investigations and helping us understand the com-
plexities of the country’s politics and economics. Michelle and Alejandra helped
us to understand the shifting balance of forces between complex socio-political
configurations and ideological currents, and there are few people who understand
mining in Ecuador better than William.
In Venezuela, many of the interviews conducted for this book were carried out
together with Susan Spronk. Many thanks to Susan for her friendship and political
acumen during those investigations. Atenea Jiménez Lemon and William Gudiño
helped us make connections and better understand the Venezuelan conjuncture.
In London (U.K.) we presented parts of our preliminary research in the
Historical Materialism and World Development working group. Particularly ben-
eficial were the comments we received from Ben Selwyn, Liam Campling, Satoshi
Miyamura, and Jonathan Pattenden.
This book was written with support from the Social Sciences and Human
Research Council.
Our heartfelt appreciation to all of the courageous activists throughout the
Americas, facing off against Canadian imperialism, who agreed to speak with us
over the last five years. We hope they receive this book as a modest contribution
to the struggle.
As ever, our deepest thanks go to Jackie Esmonde and Tieneke Dykstra.
Part i
Introduction
1
Chapter 1
Velvet Gloves
and Iron Fists
In recent years, the Canadian state has lent its support to a repressive post-coup
regime in Honduras; it has provided military and ideological backing for a repres-
sive regime in Colombia, one which boasts the hemisphere’s worst record on human
rights; it has aggressively interfered in the domestic affairs of left-of-centre Latin
American governments, such as that of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Rafael
Correa in Ecuador; it has supported ecological destruction and the dislocation
of vulnerable populations in the region through its support for Canadian natural
resource companies; it has provided cover for exploitative working conditions in
the factories of Canadian companies operating in the export processing zones of
Central America; it has sought to delegitimize, coopt, or coerce popular movements
that have directly challenged the economic interests of Canadian capital—this is
the reality with which any honest study of Canada’s growing political and economic
engagement with Latin America must start. These are not extreme or isolated
examples, unrepresentative of the broader character of Canada’s foreign policies in
the Americas. As we argue in this book, the trends mentioned above are at the core
of Canadian foreign policy in Latin America, animating the dialectic of Canadian
capitalist expansion and popular resistance in the region.
Canadian multinational corporations (mncs) have expanded rapidly into Latin
America as a whole since the 1990s with devastatingly destructive force. Their
deleterious impact on human rights has been matched only by their enormous
ecological offences—indeed, the two often go hand in hand. Expansion of Canadian
capital has in turn engendered waves of creative and militant community resistance,
2
Velvet Gloves And Iron Fists 3
which has proved the most successful way thus far of containing predatory Canadian
mncs and the state policies that abet their operations. This dialectic of capitalist
expansion and popular resistance is well understood by Canadian policymakers.
For example, Stockwell Day, the former Minister of International Trade, frequently
noted the increasingly large amount of Canadian foreign investment flowing into
Latin America. Summing up the drive of Canadian foreign policy towards the
region quite effectively, he said, “These are substantial figures, and they indicate
where our interests lie.”1
But as a considerable portion of that investment is in the land-hungry and
environment-imperilling resource sector—sometimes linked simultaneously to
the Canadian financial sector—the realization of those Canadian interests, we
argue, is never fully guaranteed. As surely as Canadian investment spells future
mega profits for the investor, it faces opposition from local communities. Even
when some governments do not openly oppose Canadian resource investment,
their plans are not strictly reducible to the interests of the investor: an Ernst and
Young report cited “resource nationalism” as the biggest risk to mining companies
in 2013, up from tenth largest in 2008. “Resource nationalism” encompasses moves
by governments of the Global South to capture a greater share of windfall profits
earned during the most recent commodity boom.2 A central argument of this book
is that Canadian “interests” are, by their very nature, fraught with contradiction
and instability in Latin America, and require state protection if they are not to be
undermined. Providing such protection is the overarching goal of Canadian for-
eign policy in the region—whether in its diplomatic, developmental, or security
form—to ensure the successful expansion of Canadian capital in its relentless and
insatiable drive for more profit.
Canada’s intensified engagement in Latin America has received increased
attention from observers in both popular and academic literature in recent years.
With some notable exceptions most of the analysis, though, has been limited in
its insights.3 Conflicts between Canadian companies and local communities, for
example, are covered inconsistently and typically in isolation from the broader
pattern of conflagration that has marked the expansion of Canadian capital. The
systematic failure of the Canadian state to hold mncs legally accountable for their
practices, or otherwise rein them in, is rarely discussed in the extant literature.
When it is covered, the analysis is commonly bound up in a narrative that presents
Canadian foreign policy as confused, rooted in a misunderstanding of the region,
or as a simple expression of our subordinate relationship to the United States. To
the extent criticism of the actions of the Canadian state is advanced, it is tepid, and
the scale of violence and destruction meted out by Canadian companies and the
security forces supporting them is downplayed.
Furthermore, while the expansion of Canadian capital into Latin America and
4 Blood of Extraction
contemporary expressions of Canadian foreign policy begs serious consideration of

the imperialist dynamics of the world system in the twenty-first century and the role
of the Canadian state therein, no observers have thus far conducted such research.
Contemporary scholarship on Canada’s relations with the region routinely fails to
situate Canada’s interventions within the broader context of the starkly asymmetric
dynamics of global capitalist accumulation. What such an analysis reveals, is that
Canada is one of the richest countries in the world, and it is operating within a global
system of imperialism that continues to systematically benefit capital from the Global
North at the expense of the people and ecologies of the Global South. A related
lacuna is the missing analysis of the sheer scale of the Canadian drive to dominate the
natural resources and human labour of Latin America. The novelty and scope of this
domination has never been properly documented and analyzed.4 What is more, the
issues at hand are not reducible to the question of capital penetration, as important
as that is; the expansion of Canadian capital is inseparable from a more outwardly
aggressive Canadian foreign policy stance and the effort of the Canadian state to
imprint itself on the decision making of Latin American states and communities.
Now, one objection to our theoretical framework might be that it no longer
makes sense to use the term “Canadian” capital. There is a widely held notion that
in an age of transnational globalization it is no longer accurate to refer to national
capitals and their particular interests; rather, it is said that we should speak of trans-
national capitals which root themselves in this or that nation state opportunistically
and flexibly. While we recognize that there has indeed been a certain intensification
of trends in transnational coordination of capitals (alongside ongoing competition)
over the last forty years or so, we maintain that it continues to be crucial to retain
the concept of national capitals, and in our case, to speak of Canadian capital—that
is, capital that has a clear and indentifiable Canadian owner, whether as an owner
of a private company or as a majority or minority (with controlling influence)
shareholder of a publicly-traded company.
Imperialism without Colonies

Our fundamental analytical and empirical concern in this book is the role assumed
by the Canadian state within the worldwide system of capitalist imperialism in
relation to Latin America. It makes sense, then, to be clear conceptually from the
outset about the relationship between capitalism and imperialism. A key feature
of capitalism is its self-expansionary character, its compulsion to envelop the
world. “The need of a constantly expanding market for its product,” Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels wrote long ago in The Communist Manifesto, “chases the
bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle
everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.”5
“From its beginnings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” notes political
economist David McNally, “capitalism has sought to profit from the exploitation of
the peoples and natural resources around the globe.” The international dimensions
of the history of capitalist development in Europe involved massive “world move-
ments of cotton, sugar, tobacco—and, most unconscionably, of enslaved Africans,”
all of which “fuelled the accumulation of capitalist wealth.” According to McNally,
“the colonization of huge areas of the globe—Ireland, India, the aboriginal lands
of North and South America, China, much of Africa—were all central aspects of
capitalist development…capitalism has always been global in orientation.”6 “Mature
capitalism,” political theorist Colin Mooers argues, “is inevitably imperialist; the
outward push of capital, its search for new geographical sources of accumulation,
is an inbuilt feature of the system.”7
However, when we look around the world today we do not see the same prolif-
eration of prolonged territorial conquests and rule by colonizers over the colonized
as in centuries past. Colonialism, understood strictly as the “political control of
peoples and territories by foreign states, whether accompanied by significant per-
manent settlement (‘settler colonies’) or not” is a marginal feature of contemporary
world politics.8 Has speaking of imperialism in the twenty-first century therefore
lost much of its meaning? Or did imperialism become, in the wake of World War II
and the decolonization of former European empires, imperialism without colonies?
Following the political theorist Ellen Meiksins Wood, we want to suggest that
we live in a world in which imperialist domination no longer relies on permanent
colonies. According to the dynamics of the world system today, “capitalist imperial-
ism has become almost entirely a matter of economic domination, in which market
imperatives, manipulated by the dominant capitalist powers, are made to do the
work no longer done by imperial states or colonial settlers.”9 In Empire of Capital,
Wood takes us on a whirlwind tour, beginning with the rhythms of the Roman
Empire and ending with driving dynamics—capitalist competition, accumulation,
and increasing labour productivity—at the heart of the contemporary leadership
of the United States over the global economy and the hierarchically ordered world
system of states. Hashing out the distinctive characteristics of a particularly capitalist
imperialism is the consistent focus of Wood’s text, which moves her to juxtapose
our current epoch with empires past. Wood’s aim is to unmask and underline “what
drives [capitalist imperialism] and has distinguished it from other imperial forms
since its inception.”10
There is one facet of Wood’s contribution that deserves special attention. She
points to the analogous relationship between specific forms of domestic social
relations and specific forms of imperial rule, between the operation and expansion
of the domestic social relations of capitalism particularly, and the externalization
of capital through capitalist imperialism. The historical record shows that there
has been a tight historical association between both non-capitalist and capitalist
societies, on the one hand, and their imperialisms, on the other. Non-capitalist
colonial empires of the past—such as the feudal Portuguese and Spanish Empires
in Latin America between the late fifteenth and early nineteenth centuries—like
feudal lords in their relations with peasants, dominated territory and subjects
through military conquest, often direct political rule, and therefore extensive
extra-economic coercion; in contrast, capitalist imperialism “can exercise its rule
by economic means, by manipulating the forces of the market, including the
weapon of debt.”11 It does not follow that capitalist imperialism dispenses with
the need for coercive force, as any casual perusal of the daily newspapers in the
twenty-first century will attest. Indeed, as Colin Mooers suggests, “force remains
indispensable both to the achievement of market ‘openness’ where it does not yet
exist and to securing ongoing compliance with the rights of capital.”12 For Wood,
a world defined by the near-universalization of capitalism is a relatively recent
historical development and thus requires a new theory of imperialism, one that is
“designed for a world in which all international relations are internal to capitalism
and governed by capitalist imperatives.”13
Therefore, colonialism, understood as direct political control of peoples and
territories by foreign states, whether or not through permanent settlement strate-
gies, is best understood as merely one of the forms that imperialism has assumed
historically. As Bernstein points out:
Whereas colonialism means direct rule of a people by a foreign state,

imperialism refers to a general system of domination by a state (or states)
of other states, regions or the whole world. Thus political subjugation
through colonialism is only one form this domination might take; impe-
rialism also encompasses different kinds of indirect control.14
In a complimentary refinement of this definition, which focuses our attention

on North-South relations specifically, and which allows us to see how forms of
capitalist imperialism may change over different historical periods in the rise and
consolidation of capitalism as a world system while retaining some of their basic
presuppositions, David McNally suggests: “imperialism is a system of global
inequalities and domination—embodied in regimes of property, military power
and global institutions—through which wealth is drained from the labour and
resources of people in the Global South to the systematic advantage of capital in
the North.”15
In sum, capitalist imperialism is characterized by deep structural inequalities
between regions and countries of the world. These inequalities are exacerbated by
the uneven development of global capitalist relations, and are reproduced through
the active policies adopted by imperialist states and powerful international financial
institutions (ifis), such as the International Monetary Fund (imf) and the World
Bank. Capitalist imperialism involves the draining of the wealth and resources of
poorer countries to the benefit of capital of the Global North, at the cost of the
majority of the peoples of the Global South. The majority of inhabitants of imperial-
ized countries experience imperialism through the blunt end of economic, political,
ideological, and military bludgeons. “Underdevelopment” or “dependency” in the
Global South is not a necessary structural corollary of growth and development in
the imperialist core—as per classical dependency theory.16 Rather, it is a product
of the uneven way in which capitalist growth takes shape, itself a product of the
logic internal to capitalism at the national, regional, and global levels that leads
the most productive capital to concentrate in already wealthy regions and spread
slowly, haltingly, and often under fairly specific conditions (for instance, to access
raw materials, or in response to economic crisis at home) to other parts of the globe.
What concerns us here, however, is not simply a question of uneven development,
or simply market forces internal to capitalist accumulation. We are interested in
the manners in which uneven development is amplified and reproduced through
the actions of capitalist states of the Global North in order to create and recreate
conditions to the benefit of Northern capital. In some cases, these actions benefit
all capital, but because of uneven development the patterns of contemporary
capitalist imperialism tend to concentrate benefits in the hands of capital from the
Global North. State managers of core imperialist countries introduce policies such
as structural adjustment, free trade, market liberalization, and political interference
of various kinds in order to structure the domestic political economies of weaker
nations to the benefit of imperialist capital.
Dependency of peripheral countries on the core, therefore, is not a necessary
product of capitalist accumulation, but rather the frequent outcome of the combi-
nation of uneven development and conscious actions taken by imperialist states.
This is not to say imperialist states are attempting consciously to reproduce the
impoverishment of dependent countries necessarily (though it may be the case in
some instances), as much as they are trying to shape the political and economic
dynamics of dependent states such that they remain politically subordinate to
the interests of capital from the core. Patterns of dependency are, therefore, a
combination of intended political action and unintended by-products of capital-
ist accumulation. Political economist Andrew Higginbottom points out that one
can find contemporary iterations of modernization theory in the outlook of many
core imperialist states, as well as in the regular publications of the World Bank and
the imf.17 Such articulations of modernization theory today argue that Foreign
Direct Investment (fdi) ipso facto represents a necessary source for Third World
development and improvement in the standard of living of the peoples of the Third
World. And, indeed, the position is reiterated, albeit in a different register, in some
Marxist theories of imperialism. 18
Ray Kiely, for example, deploys a framework of uneven development that
offers important insights into the persistent political and economic asymmetries
between the Global North and Global South. However, he also suggests that a
principal problem facing the Global South is the lack of inflowing fdi from richer
nations. The continuing concentration of fdi within and between the countries of
the Global North is a central problem for Kiely.19 This overstates the concentration
of fdi in the North, which is real, but in the case of Canada, for instance, there is
also clear growth over the last twenty-five years in the proportion of its outward
flowing fdi that targets countries of the South.20 But it also fails to problematize
an economic process that is clearly not, in and of itself, beneficial to populations
of the South. An increase in fdi flows does not by definition equal progress. To
cite but one important example, a recent report of the Economic Commission for
Latin American and the Caribbean argues:
Profits made by transnational companies operating in Latin America

and the Caribbean have increased by a factor of 5.5 in nine years [up to
2011].…This surge in profits…tends to cancel out the positive impact of
fdi inflows on the balance of payments. The evidence for Latin America
and the Caribbean shows, in fact, that in the past few years outflows
registered as fdi income were almost as high (92%) as inflows in the
Caribbean.21
The same study indicates that the rate of outflow per dollar of profit earned—that
is, repatriated to the home country of the multinational corporation (mnc)—is
highest in the natural resources sector with over 50 percent of fdi profit in mining-
centric countries being repatriated, for example. At the same time, average returns
on fdi accruing to mncs in the natural resources sector has been considerably
higher than in other sectors over the last two decades, and more than double that
of the second highest sector for the largest five hundred companies investing in the
region.22 Due to the intersection of the liberalized natural resource regimes found
throughout much of the Americas and high global commodity prices, “extremely
high returns [were] obtained by corporations in the extractive industries.”23 From
2001 to 2011, fdi flows increased by a factor of approximately 2.7, or less than the
increase in profits.24 The fact that liberalized tax regimes in countries of the Global
South are accompanied by corporate strategies to transfer profits to jurisdictions
with more permissive tax environments if necessary, means that natural resource
sector growth is not typically a reliable strategy for improving economic wellbeing
of people in these countries. Adding to this problem, as the eclac report makes
clear, despite Canadian government justifications to the contrary, the natural

resources sector is a poor employment generator. Mining and oil investment, for
example, is the lowest job creator out of twelve major industries featured in the
eclac report, with only 0.5 jobs created per US$1 million invested.25
This is especially important because the strategic orientation of imperialist
powers such as the U.S. and Canada vis-à-vis Latin America over the last fifteen
years has been driven principally by an effort to assert control over access to the
region’s immense natural resource wealth. The importance of this dynamic has
intensified as opportunities for accumulation have been opened up in the context
of the neoliberal privatization of natural resources, and, until recently, increasing
prices of basic commodities on the international market.26 At the same time, in
geopolitical terms, both the U.S. and Canada have been interested in containing
through persuasion, and/or eliminating through coercion, the rising tide of popular
social movements and left-leaning governments in the region, an important part
of whose mandates has been precisely to reclaim popular sovereign control over
natural resources and reassert political and economic autonomy in the region vis-
à-vis dominant external powers.27
It is worth remembering here that Latin America and the Caribbean contain 25
percent of the world’s forests and 40 percent of its biodiversity. The region contains
85 percent of all known reserves of lithium, and a third of copper, bauxite, and silver.
Latin America and the Caribbean are similarly rich in coal, oil, gas, and uranium,
with 27, 25, 8, and 5 percent respectively of all discovered deposits in the world
currently being exploited. New underwater oil reserves, meanwhile, are regularly
being discovered along the region’s vast coast lines. Finally, the region contains 35
percent of the globe’s potential hydroelectricity and the biggest reserves of fresh
water under its soil.28
Ecology and Racism

Access to the South’s natural resources, and the often disastrous ecological impact
of the rapid development of economic sectors like mining, oil and gas development,
and dam building, are therefore key to the dynamics of imperialism. Imperialism
is an ecological phenomenon: it is shaped by ecological regimes, such as the ways
in which certain natural resources have become central to capitalist accumulation
and the geographical location of these natural resources, while it in turn transforms
(usually destructively) local and regional ecologies in pursuit of profit, such as by
blowing off the side of and clear-cutting a mountain in order to build an open-
pit mine, the toxic waste from which leeches into the surrounding water system
poisoning everything in the area. This connection remains undeveloped in much
of the literature on imperialism, especially in accounts that stress a lack of fdi as
a central issue facing poor countries without seriously considering the ecological
factors motivating and resulting from the expansion of capital from the Global
North into the South. Canadian fdi, as we discuss, is inserted into the wider sys-
tem of global capitalism, which is based on an insatiable thirst for non-renewable
resources, increasingly found in the Third World. Inevitably running alongside
Canadian efforts to expand fdi is a series of initiatives that aim to weaken already
poor environmental regulations.29
Predictably, imperialist powers downplay the environmentally and socially
destructive nature of capitalist expansion and their aggressive free market policies.
In so doing, their defense of market liberalization and fdi mobilizes, explicitly
or implicitly, racist tropes about the backward peoples of the Third World, mired
in poverty and debt and unable to help themselves. This is a recurring theme
throughout our book. Imperialism and racism, as noted earlier, have been intimately
connected through the history of capitalism, rooted as it is, in part, on colonialism.
As is the case of ongoing capitalist expansion within Canadian borders, much of
the land Canadian resource companies are pursuing in Latin America is inhabited
by indigenous peoples. Canadian natural resource companies often ignore indig-
enous claims to the land, and act as if these territories were terra nullius: empty
and going to waste. It is up to mncs to transform that land into a source of com-
merce and profit, and any indigenous communities that challenge the authority
of investors—that are not grateful for the help foreign investors are bestowing
upon them—are seen as obstacles to progress—that is, they are to be removed,
by force if necessary. The mere fact that they do not demonstrate reverence to the
interests behind capitalist development, and see the land as more than a means for
capitalist exploitation, is cause for them to be dismissed as backward and naïve.
This worldview also regularly provides justification for the repression of indigenous
communities in resource-rich areas by legal and illegal security forces. Given the
history of capitalism within Canadian borders, Canadian business and political
leaders are well practiced in these dynamics.
Ecological destruction of indigenous or poor peasant communities in the
South transforms those communities in profound ways. Dislocated from the land
and its resources, indigenous patterns of social reproduction are undercut, put-
ting new pressures on women in particular who are often the primary caregivers
for the young. The ability to sustain themselves on the land is threatened, and
greater integration into market relations is encouraged by the ifis and national aid
programs, including Canada’s. But the sheer scale of displacement from the land
over the last two decades has meant that market relations in poorer countries are
not a realistic option for survival for most people. The natural resources sector,
as we have noted, has very low employment levels as a ratio of investment. The
growth of low-wage manufacturing zones in the Third World has drawn millions
of dispossessed peasants, primarily women, in search of work, despite extremely

poor working conditions. The new proletarians are desperate to eke out an exist-
ence on the rough margins of global capitalism. For many others, the only option
for survival is migration to the Global North, leaving family behind in a desperate
search for work at what is, inevitably, the very bottom end of the labour markets in
North America, Europe, and the Middle East. In the Global North, racist exploita-
tion of migrant labour is cloaked in the language of citizenship to exclude these
foreign-born workers from the basic rights won by workers born in places such as
Canada and the U.S. In the neoliberal age of global mass migration—the scale of
which is unparalleled in history—the social reproduction of increasing numbers
of poor people of colour is an international process.30
The goal of fdi has never been development per se, nor improved standards
of living for peoples of the Global South. The goal, rather, is profit. Investors look
for opportunities in scenarios that will allow for the repatriation of as much profit
as possible with as little interference from local governments and communities as
possible. If there is excessive “regulation” or “red tape,” or if demands from local
communities threaten to make serious inroads on profitability, investors will move
elsewhere when possible. Leaving aside for the moment the matter of what kind
of development is most desirable for social justice and the future of the world’s
ecological systems and human population, a simple uptick in fdi does not con-
stitute a formula for improved living standards or endogenous industrial growth.
As economist Anwar Shaikh has demonstrated, fdi flows facilitate and intensify
uneven development and poverty, while simultaneously generating profits for
corporations in the Global North, as well as a thin layer of the population in the
imperialized country (mainly capitalists and politicians).31 Any theory which sug-
gests that fdi is the central driver for meaningful development, or which uncritically
situates fdi as a solution to problems of poverty and inequality in the Global South,
is dangerously simplistic and needs to be challenged.
Neoliberalism
The phase of world capitalism that most interests us in this book is that of neoliberal
globalization, which spans across roughly the last four decades. There is a significant
amount of confusion and obscurity as to what precisely characterizes this latest
phase of global capitalism, and it is therefore necessary to be quite specific in our
use of the relevant terminology. Neoliberalism on a world-scale, in our view, ought
to be understood as a political project of the ruling classes in the advanced capitalist
countries—especially in the U.S.—to create or restore capitalist class power in all
corners of the globe in response to the crisis of Keynesian and developmentalist
economics in the late 1960s; the decline in profitability and the growth of stagflation
by the 1970s; and the rise of leftist political threats to capital in the shape of radical
popular struggles, labour movements, and peasant insurgencies across large parts
of the world during that period.32
The purist theory of free market economic fundamentals which provides the
bedrock for neoliberal ideology should be understood as a flexible toolkit for jus-
tifying the project for restoring capitalist class power, rather than as a guide to the
actual policy practice of states during this period. The extent to which state policy
has conformed to the precepts of the purist theory of neoliberalism has varied
tremendously across different cases. Globally, neoliberalism has failed miserably
in terms of its declared objectives of increasing economic efficiency and improv-
ing human well-being. However, seen as a political project for the formation or
restoration of capitalist class power, neoliberalism has been hugely successful.
Nonetheless, its implementation has created massive social contradictions, not
least since the Great Recession began in 2007–2008, initiating in its wake a wave of
ever more extreme experimentations in economic austerity throughout most of the
world.33 In the twenty-first century, organized popular rejection of the neoliberal
model has been most advanced in Latin America, although since 2011 the Arab
uprisings and waves of movement across parts of southern Europe have added to
the international fomentation of resistance.34
Financial Capital
The expansion of neoliberal capitalism in the last quarter of the twentieth century
and the opening years of the twenty-first had a number of defining characteristics.
To start, given the fact that its economic dominance in the realm of production
was threatened by the late 1960s, the U.S. state placed its bets in finance. Financial
capital in the U.S. increasingly played a central role in the renewed project of capi-
talist imperialism initiated through the neoliberalization of the globe.35 In order
for this to be successful, the U.S. required the liberalization of markets, and in
particular capital markets. Taking advantage of the leverage over countries of the
Global South offered up by the debt crisis of the 1980s, both the U.S. state, and, to
a lesser but important degree, other core imperialist powers, utilized their control
of the most important international financial institutions—commercial banks, the
multilateral lending institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (imf) and
the World Bank, and various regional banks—to push through structural adjust-
ment programmes (saps) in a vast number of countries.36 saps, which were often
imposed by imf and World Bank conditionality, typically included demands for
countries of the Global South to commit to fiscal austerity with minimal to zero
deficits, cutbacks in spending for social services and subsidies for food and other
basic necessities, reform of the tax system, liberalization of financial markets, uni-
fication of exchange rates, liberalization of trade, elimination of barriers to foreign
direct investment (fdi), deregulation of industry, and strengthening of guarantees

of private property rights.37
Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

In Global Shift, the geographer Peter Dickens offers an accounting of aggregate
world economic trends over the decades in which such policies were the main
framework governing state policy in most regions. In particular, he offers a meas-
ure of the various indicators of growing interconnectedness within the global
economy, and particularly trends in the flows of trade and fdi.38 In terms of general
trade flows, while they have been incredibly uneven across countries and regions
in terms of integration, the evidence suggests an uptick in processes of intercon-
nectedness in the world economy since the 1980s. An ever-increasing amount of
what is produced, in other words, is moving across borders. However, if trade has
grown intensively over the neoliberal period, fdi has still outpaced trade by some
distance. We observe an incredible upturn in fdi since the mid-1980s, which
quite radically exceeds the also-expanding export trends. fdi is important to our
analysis of Canada, as it constitutes investment above the threshold (10 percent)
considered to give the investor managerial control over the asset being purchased,
whether it is a bank, a mine, or a sweatshop factory. While it is still true today that
fdi continues to be concentrated in the triad of North America, Europe, and Japan,
it is also evident that there are increasing fdi flows toward other select areas of the
Global South, most importantly China, which has become a major new zone of
capital accumulation. It is important to note that aggregate data on flows, trends,
and volatility in the global economy are a necessary backdrop to understanding
the neoliberal epoch, but also that they tell us little about the profound unevenness
of these trends across different geographical zones—for example concentrations
of production, trade, and fdi in some zones, and their relative absence in others.
Nonetheless, what this all means, Dickens points out, is that the primary mechanism
of interconnectedness within the global economy has shifted in the neoliberal era
from trade to fdi.39
Multinational Corporations
And what are the new agents of fdi and trade in the global economy? The princi-
pal actor that has emerged as the vehicle to facilitate the soaring flows of fdi and
trade is the multinational corporation (mnc). These enormous entities, although
operating across borders, maintain headquarters in specific countries and continue
to rely on their home states to defend their interests domestically and abroad. In
this sense, the capitalist state remains a core feature of capitalist imperialism in the
neoliberal epoch. The capitalist state—with its laws defending such things as the
sanctity of private property and individual over collective rights, its administrative
mechanisms (policing, labour laws, welfare systems) to manage class struggle, and
its privileged role in printing money and influencing the financial system—emerged
as a means of containing the social contradictions thrown up by capitalism, and
thus of producing stable market relations. This has been done historically by
ensuring that social struggles and any other threats to market relations are safely
defused or, when necessary, repressed.40 Imperialist states today do their best to
secure markets at home and pry open and consolidate new markets for their mncs
abroad. These characteristics of the neoliberal period together—fdi and trade
increases, the emergence of mncs, and the facilitation of all of these other factors
by imperialist states—are part of the reason we pay so much attention in this book
to the dynamics of Canadian fdi in Latin America, and the role of the Canadian
state in supporting the advance of Canadian mncs in the region.
Accumulation by Dispossession
Key to the analysis of global capitalism developed by Marxist geographer David
Harvey over roughly the last decade is his concept of accumulation by dispos-
session. Accumulation by dispossession is an elaboration of Marx’s notion of
“primitive accumulation.” Wood explains how primitive accumulation in Marx’s
writings refers to “the expropriation of direct producers, in particular peasants”
that “gave rise to specifically capitalist social property relations and the dynamic
associated with them.”41 Marx writes of those epoch making “moments when great
masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and
hurled onto the labour market as free, unprotected, and rightless proletarians. The
expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil is the basis
of the whole process. The history of this expropriation assumes different aspects
in different countries, and runs through its various phases in different orders of
succession, and at different historical epochs.”42
For Harvey, Marx rightly highlighted these processes of capital accumulation
“based upon predation, fraud, and violence,” but incorrectly imagined them to
be exclusively features of a “primitive” or “original” stage of capitalism. With the
concept of accumulation by dispossession Harvey wants to point rather to the
continuity of predatory practices that have risen dramatically to the surface once
again in the era of neoliberalism.43 Since the mid-1970s, assets around the world
previously held under collective ownership—either by the state or in common—
have been forced on an unprecedented scale into the realm of the market, often
through fraud, coercion, and innumerable forms of predation both by the state and
powerful private actors. In other words, many forms of public property have been
commodified, have entered into the market as commodities for buying and sell-
ing. The intensification of commodification has included the commodification of
labour, or the proletarianization of peasantries and indigenous peoples, on a grand
scale. Harvey, in a vivid if perhaps rather too all-encompassing fashion, includes

all of these variegated processes into the singular—albeit uneven and complex—
unfolding of accumulation by dispossession across the globe.44 “Considered on a
historical level,” write Adolfo Gilly and Rhina Roux:
The expansion of the capital relation sustains itself in two concomitant and
interconnected processes: exploitation (appropriation of surplus product
under the form of surplus-value) and dispossession (violent appropriation,
or concealed under legal forms, of natural goods and goods of communal
or public property).…In our view this refers to a permanent process,
which forms a part of, and always accompanies, the process of capital.45
Each of these traits of the neoliberal phase of capitalism on a world-scale has

its specific Latin American variation. We will return to the regional specificities
in a moment, but first let us examine the recent patterns of Canadian capital’s
international expansion in light of our discussions of capitalism, imperialism, and
neoliberalism above.
The Expansion of Canadian Capital

As we have suggested, Canada is deeply implicated in contemporary dynamics
of imperialism as they are playing out in Latin America. To start, the scale of
the expansion of Canadian capital in Latin America in the form of fdi over the
last quarter century has been phenomenal, following the liberalization of capital
flows, the rewriting of natural resource and financial sector rules, the privatization
of public assets, and so on. In 1990 it stood at only C$2.58 billion in stock (that
is, cumulative fdi flows). It rose to C$25.3 billion in 2000, an increase of 880
percent, and to C$59.4 billion—amidst the deepest global economic recession
since the 1930s—in 2013, an increase of 134 percent from the year 2000, and
2,198 percent from the year 1990. The figures for 2000 and 2013, moreover, are
certainly an underrepresentation of the extent of Canadian capital’s penetration
of the region, as Statistics Canada’s data, from which these figures are primarily
drawn, do not include Canadian investment that is routed through the Caribbean
Offshore Financial Centres (ofcs), which, if it did, would likely double-to-triple
the figures for some countries given how strong Canadian financial capital’s pres-
ence is in the Caribbean ofc sector, as we note below.46
To put the growth of Canadian investment into Latin America into perspec-
tive, American fdi into the region over this same period, while not surprisingly
much higher than that of Canada in absolute terms (at US$283.9 billion in 2012),
increased at a slower pace: by 79 percent from 2000–2012 and by 555 percent
from 1990–2012; and, notably, as a share of total fdi into Latin America and the
Caribbean combined, U.S. fdi decreased from 46.8 percent in 1990 to 38.7 percent
in 2012. From 2007 to 2012, Canada was the second largest external source of fdi
to Latin America and the Caribbean combined behind the U.S.—it was the third
largest source if Latin America as a whole is included as a source region—a jump
from fifth during the period from 1995 to 2005. And while American investment
is much greater than Canadian, the rate of the latter is much greater than that of
the former. The Canadian economy is roughly one-tenth the size of its American
counterpart, but Canadian foreign investment in Latin America and the Caribbean
combined is one-fourth that of the U.S.47
Finance and Mining

Canadian investment is occurring across a range of sectors. As we discuss in the
chapter on Honduras, one of the largest sock and t-shirt manufacturers in the
world, and the largest private sector employer in the Central America country, is
Montreal-based Gildan Activewear. Canadian oil and gas, pipeline, and construc-
tion companies also play prominent and controversial roles in the hemisphere. But
it is clearly in the financial and mining sectors where Canadian companies are most
prominent. Canadian financial companies have long-established historical roots in
the region, going back to the nineteenth century, often connected to U.S.-backed
dictatorships.48 But the neoliberal period has seen a sharp expansion of Canadian
financial capital in the western hemisphere, growing from 15 percent of Canadian
fdi in the early 1980s to close to half in the 2000s.49 Scotiabank, for instance, the
Canadian bank most well-established outside of North America, generates more
than one-fifth of its profits from its extensive international investments, the major-
ity of which are in the Americas. It spent approximately C$6 billion on more than
twenty acquisitions in the Americas from 2007 to 2012—part of a wave of Canadian
takeovers of foreign financial assets following the 2008 global crisis.50 Canadian
banks dominate the financial sector in the English Caribbean, controlling its three
largest banks. Three Canadian banks—rbc, Scotiabank and cibc—own over C$42
billion in assets there (61 percent of total Caribbean banking assets), forty times
greater than what approximately forty-odd local banks own.51 The significance of
this influence extends beyond the English Caribbean, of course. As the Economic
Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean notes:
The share of [Canadian] fdi going through international financial centers

has increased significantly and represents a very important distortion,
because these flows of Canadian capital do not remain in ofcs, but go
on to final destinations in third markets, mainly in Latin America and the
Caribbean, Asia, the United States and Europe.52
Canada’s mining industry, meanwhile, is the largest in the world. Approximately

two-thirds of the world’s mining companies are based in Canada, with its permissive
tax and legal regime, long mining history that has nurtured an aggressive explora-
tion and producing sector, and unflinching foreign policy support for companies
with international ambitions.53 Those international ambitions, coupled with the
Canadian state’s legal and diplomatic fealty, has led Canadian companies, big and
small, to the four corners of the globe in pursuit of profit. But the Americas (Latin
America plus the Caribbean) account for over half of Canadian mining assets
held abroad—C$72.4 billion.54 Whereas there were only two Canadian mines in
operation (i.e., not simply exploration properties or mines under construction)
in 1990, that jumped to eighty in 2012, with another forty-eight in the develop-
ment or feasibility stage, according to the Canadian International Development
Platform (whose numbers are drawn from industry database www.infomine.com).
These operating mines generated combined revenue of C$19.3 billion in 2012
for Canadian companies.55 According to the Northern Miner (an industry web
publication) database, in 2014, 62 percent of all producing mines in the region
were owned by a company headquartered in Canada.56 The size and international
leading role of the Canadian mining industry is no doubt the reason Toronto is the
most important financial nodal point of the global mining industry. In 2013, for
example, C$6.9 billion was raised in equity financing on the city’s two exchanges
(the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Toronto Venture), representing 84 percent
of the global total.57
Super-Profits
The dominance of Latin America’s natural resource markets has showered the own-
ers of Canadian companies with super-profits. Looking only at the earnings from
mines that were still operational in 2013 (fifteen gold mines in total), the three
largest gold mining companies by revenue—Barrick, Yamana, and Goldcorp—
earned a combined net profit of US$14.9 billion between 1998 and 2013.58 The
rate of profit for these operating mines was an astounding 45 percent; with taxes
and royalties factored in for Barrick, it was still an incredible 42.4 percent. The
average rate of profit for the Canadian economy as a whole from 1998 to 2013 was
11.8 percent.59 Here, presented quite plainly, are the Canadian “interests” at stake
in Latin America. As we discuss further below, the argument from Canadian gov-
ernments of various stripes and the companies themselves, repeated ad nauseam,
is that Canadian resource companies are not simply getting filthy rich off of the
resources of impoverished and dispossessed communities. Canadian companies
are, instead, improving the living standards of the communities where they are
digging gold, silver, copper, and other toxic riches from the ground.
In truth, very little of the company profits are invested in local communities.
Barrick and Yamana’s combined “community investment” spending—part of

companies’ Corporate Social Responsibility (csr) agendas to create the fiction
that they give back to communities whose land they exploit and whose political
problems they accentuate—was a miserly 1.4 percent of net earnings in 2012 and
0.9 percent in 2011 (comparable figures for Goldcorp were not available). But
beyond the supposed “community investments,” after construction is completed
there is very little new inflow of money from these companies into the countries
in which they are operating mines; and the construction costs of new mines are
usually made back within the first few years of the mines’ operations. New capital
expenditures on operating mines by Barrick and Goldcorp averaged 39.9 percent
of previous years’ net profits during the period studied. These are thus reinvested
earnings, not new inflows. Most of their profits, in other words, leave the country,
and after the construction period, mining represents a significant net outflow of
value. It is important to keep in mind, as well, how poor a job creator large-scale
industrial mining is, on top of the human displacement and irreparable ecologi-
cal damage these mines, by necessity, cause. In short, these companies and their
owners are getting incredibly rich from Latin America’s mineral wealth, at the
expense of the often impoverished communities that are left to deal with legacies
of dislocation, poisoned water sources and, not uncommonly, the violence that
makes all this possible.60
Canada’s Strategic Engagement with Latin America
Predatory Instincts
While a proper accounting of the wreckage caused by Canadian mncs when they
invade Latin America is studiously avoided in the mainstream Canadian media and
academic literature, the reputation of these mncs now precedes them in the region.
People living in places where Canadian investment is significant and influential
know full well the practices of which Canadian companies are capable. Residents
of communities in mining regions flying Canadian flags with skulls and crossbones
over the maple leaves have no illusions about what Canadian capital represents. The
real stories of Canadian investment in Latin America that lie behind the fairytale
representations found in the pages of Corporate Social Responsibility (csr) on
company websites thus feature prominently in our book. The lies of the big mining
companies, sweatshop manufacturers, and other investors need to be demolished
so that the economic elites behind them, as well as their political backers, can
be held to account. With super-profits awaiting them, the owners of Canadian
resource companies, for example, have proven unwilling to brook meaningful
political challenges from impacted communities. Any dissent quickly becomes a
security matter—sometimes at a very high price for those resisting. Between 2009
and May 2014, at least twenty-three people were murdered in Latin America in
conflicts involving Canadian mining companies.61
That is the bloody tip of the iceberg, however. A 2009 report by the Canadian
Centre for the Study of Resource Conflict, commissioned by the industry
organization Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (pdac), found
that Canadian companies have the worst record in the world for human rights,
environmental, and occupational incidents, accounting for one-third of all those
incidents studied—a much higher rate than other countries. The pdac did not
publicly release its findings; they had to be leaked instead.62 Of course, conflict,
human rights abuses, and environmental damage do not end at the mining sector,
even if that sector offers some of the most egregious examples. Canada’s Gildan
Activewear has become one of the largest manufacturers of t-shirts and socks in
the world through its terrible working conditions in the export processing zones of
Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. Meanwhile, Scotiabank
was the focus of violent protests during Argentina’s economic meltdown in 2002,
after the bank stopped middle class and poorer Argentinians from withdrawing
their savings during a banking collapse, and refused to recapitalize its Argentinian
operations, instead closing shop, exiting the country, and leaving many Argentinians
destitute.63
Capital and the State

Canadian capital’s penetration of Latin America has not been accomplished on
its own; it has received the steadfast support of the Canadian state—from the
Prime Minister’s Office (pmo) to Foreign Affairs, the Canadian International
Development Agency (cida) (as of 2015 Foreign Affairs, cida, and International
Trade are now part of Global Affairs Canada), National Defence, Natural Resources
Canada, and Health Canada—as we discuss in detail throughout this book.
Canadian foreign policy in Latin America has been intimately bound up with
the outward expansion of Canadian capital, both responding to the imperatives
and shaping the actions of Canadian mncs as their investment in the region has
steadily grown and encountered various political and social obstacles. Canadian
state managers have prioritized new and aggressive engagement with states in
the region, hoping to create the best possible conditions for the accumulation of
profit. Further expansion of Canadian investment into the region has become a
strategic goal of policymakers. Latin America was clearly on the radar of the Jean
Chretién and Paul Martin Liberal governments of the 1990s and early 2000s, who
signed the initial free trade agreements (ftas) in the region, as well as a series of
bilateral investment treaties (or Foreign Investment Protection Agreements as they
are called in Canada), including the North American, Chilean, and Costa Rican
ftas. But foreign policy engagement in Latin America was given an extra boost,
and received clearer articulation, under the Harper Conservatives, who signed
another four ftas while attempting to sketch out—publicly and privately—an
agenda for Canadian intervention.64
This observation should not be taken as suggestion that Canadian foreign policy
is reducible to the whims of a particular government, whether Conservative, Liberal,
or even New Democratic. Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal Party, replaced
Harper as Prime Minister in October 2015. While it is too early in his administration
to make any decisive claims about its foreign policy orientation in Latin America,
there is little reason to expect any significant rupture with the Harper legacy.
Clearly the Harper Conservatives left their cynical imprint on Canada’s relation
with the Americas (and the rest of the world for that matter), and, having been in
power from 2006 until 2015, their actions bear a lot of scrutiny in this book. But,
to stress a point raised earlier in our discussion of contemporary forms of imperi-
alism, Canada’s external policies, like those of other countries, are framed by the
rhythms of capitalist accumulation, with all its economic and political demands,
contradictions, and ecological limits, and by the country’s place within the privi-
leged hiearchy of the world system. These policies will persist—with changes in
inflection, priorities, and aggression to be sure—in the absence of a fundamental
reordering of the deep structural roots of global capitalist imperialism, even in the
absence of Harper. Sober reflection of Canadian engagement in Latin America
over the last two decades reveals that the Conservatives did not represent a radical
departure from their Liberal predecessors, and with Trudeau now in the helm we
should, once again, expect more continuity than change.
The Harper government formulated its Strategy for Engagement in the Americas in
2007, with the economy, democracy, and security the stated interests. The Strategy
was cited approvingly by many observers as Canada’s strategic foreign policy
turn to the hemisphere after decades without a broader, more coherent plan. The
Harper government was subsequently criticized by some media commentators and
academic observers, however, for not following through on the plan or adequately
resourcing it. For instance, it was argued that Canada under Harper was unable to
assist in the security of the region because it was overextended in Afghanistan or
that its efforts to promote democracy in a region where it is facing serious hurdles
(and such critics of the Harper government usually had places like Venezuela and
Ecuador in mind) was inconsistent and lacked a sufficiently clear strategy. These
criticisms miss the larger point. For one thing, as this book demonstrates, the goal of
the Harper government’s Americas Strategy was never the promotion of genuinely
robust democracy, and certainly not anything that would challenge the exceedingly
narrow parameters of neoliberal democracy. The overriding goal articulated in the
document is the protection of the rights of global capital in general, and Canadian
capital in particular: the creation and reinforcement of those conditions conducive

for the accumulation (and repatriation) of profit by Canadian investors, including
mechanisms to promote market liberalization, strong private property rights, and
the weakening of any institutions that could challenge this paradigm.
Security/Democracy
It is important to point out that while the majority of Canadian security spending
and thinking was devoted to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014, Latin America,
as we argue, has not fallen off the radar. With much less fanfare than in its interven-
tion in Afghanistan, Canada has been cultivating security ties with governments
in Central America and the Andes that share its flexible attitude towards the
protection of human rights. In short, such a utilitarian view of democracy and
security—ignored by most commentators—has led Canada to support regimes
of the extreme-Right (Guatemala) and authoritarian rule (post-coup Honduras).
Optimal Conditions
Reproducing the optimum conditions for foreign investors in Latin America
involves, to use Canadian foreign policy speak, a “whole of government” approach.
It is not just Foreign Affairs and cida being mobilized (both of which, undoubt-
edly, play central roles), but various departments of the Canadian state apparatus:
Natural Resources Canada, Health Canada and, of course, various Canadian secu-
rity agencies. Natural Resources Canada and Health Canada, while ostensibly not
part of the foreign affairs portfolio, nevertheless frequently bring their respective
forms of expertise to bear, particularly in contexts where governments are wavering
on the question of Canadian resource development projects, usually due to chal-
lenges from below. The expertise of these departments rests in demonstrating the
putatively safe, environmentally responsible, and economically beneficial nature
of Canadian mining. Canadian security agencies, such as National Defence and the
rcmp, as noted above, have increased their presence in training, combat exercises,
and arms and technology trafficking, following the Harper government’s call for
Canada’s deeper engagement in the region. The Harper government eschewed
any over-reliance on soft diplomacy in Canadian foreign policy more broadly. In a
speech to Conservative Party members, Harper intoned that in a world of increas-
ing threats, “Strength is not an option; it is a vital necessity.”65
This is a sentiment that clearly bleeds into Canada’s foreign policy towards Latin
America. Obviously, Canada cannot throw its military weight around on the scale
of the U.S. or other major imperial powers, but nor is it a marginal military minion:
Canada was the fourteenth largest global military spender in 2012 (behind a num-
ber of former colonial powers, as well as countries whose militaries are essentially
financed by the U.S.) with budgets above US$20 billion for the last several years,
considerably higher than its spending during the Cold War (accounting for infla-
tion). The Harper government’s Canada First Defence Strategy, announced in 2008,
forecast continued budget increases up to 2027–2028. Even though the govern-
ment scaled back spending estimates and made cuts to military spending following
the 2008 global financial crisis and the winding down of its participation in the
occupation of Afghanistan, total spending projections from the Strategy still reach
approximately C$400 billion over its lifespan. And that spending is evidently not
earmarked for peacekeeping: the investment in fighter jets, armoured personnel
carriers, naval destroyers, unmanned aerial drones etc., is designed to improve the
ability of Canada to project its hard power.66 Further, the Canadian military has
played a central role in major interventions in the last decade, such as Afghanistan,
Libya, Mali, Iraq, and Syria, demonstrating a capacity and willingness to project
its hard power abroad.
In fact, the second major Canadian military engagement of the new millennium
(after the original invasion of Afghanistan, but before taking over in Kandahar in
2006) was in the western hemisphere: the 2004 coup against the democratically-
elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the subsequent military
occupation.67 That coup—under a Liberal government in Ottawa—sent a signal
that Canada is willing to project its military power in the hemisphere against gov-
ernments and movements that fail to sufficiently demonstrate their subservience
to the imperial project. Although that is the only direct example of military inter-
vention against a government and its supporters by Canada in the hemisphere, the
Canadian security agenda also comes in other, perhaps more subtle, forms, such
as financing and training corrupt police forces that routinely violate the human
rights of political dissidents, as in Honduras and Guatemala.
In Jamaica, with whose military Canada has long-established relations, Canada
has established a military base for future rapid reaction needs in the region. The
Canadian government, of course, cites ongoing counterterrorism and counter-
narcotics efforts when discussing its increased security engagement in the region,
but as this book shows, these are only a small part of what is actually at play here.
The security forces with which the Harper government cultivated relations are
systematically located in countries that share the Canadian government’s political
and economic outlook, and/or countries in which Canadian capital has significant
interests and faces meaningful opposition, such as Honduras, Guatemala, and
Colombia.
Canada’s security relations with Colombia offer a good litmus test of its think-
ing (and the role of human rights therein). Colombia has the worst human rights
record in the hemisphere; those violations are carried out with regularity by the
military and paramilitary deaths squads—the paramilitaries enjoy barely concealed
(informal) ties to the military. This well-known scenario did not prevent Canada
from signing a security cooperation agreement with Colombia in April 2012,

which also includes cooperation on technical assistance to security apparatuses
in Guatemala and Honduras.68
Most of the heavy lifting of the Canadian imperial project, however, is under-
taken by Foreign Affairs, International Trade, and cida. Foreign Affairs, with some
direction from the Prime Minister’s Office, constructs and directs the broader
architecture of Canadian foreign policy, both in Latin America generally and in
strategic countries specifically. It is, for instance, usually cabinet ministers with
international relations and international trade portfolios that carry the Canadian
message of free markets and limited democracy to the region, and of course it is
officials with International Trade that craft the Free Trade Agreements. One com-
ponent of Canadian foreign policy that receives surprisingly little attention from
Canadian observers, especially given its importance, is the network of Canadian
embassies throughout Latin America. As is made clear in this book, embassy staff
(ambassadors, trade commissioners, cida agents) are the frontline missionaries
of the Canadian imperial project. From applying various kinds of diplomatic pres-
sure on governments, to being the eyes, ears, and mouthpieces for companies and
Ottawa abroad, embassy officials play a crucial role in intelligence gathering and
policy implementation. They often assume a behind the scenes role as facilitators
for Canadian investors. It is embassy staff who navigate the local political terrain,
advocate for investors, push for economic liberalization, and report to Ottawa
when greater pressure is needed to advance Canadian interests. Embassy staff
throughout the region also discuss among themselves opposition to Canadian
mining in different countries to develop more effective and consistent responses.69
This role is captured inadvertently by one academic researcher of the natural
resources industry in the Americas, Anthony Bebbington, who during testimony
to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in
Ottawa paraphrased a Latin American government official who reportedly said
to him, “As far as I can tell, the Canadian ambassador here is a representative for
Canadian mining companies.”70 With coordination by embassies, Canada regularly
pays for both journalists and officials in natural resource-related ministries from
select countries to travel to the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada
annual conference where they meet directly with industry and Canadian govern-
ment officials. Jennifer Moore from Mining Watch aptly describes this yearly ritual
as an effort “to manage the message…of mine conflicts.”71 The countries from
which journalists and other representatives are selected invariably feature strong
Canadian mining interests which are frequently under threat by social conflict, or by
specific policies assumed by the government in question. As our book makes clear,
the defense of Canadian capital is not a new development for embassy staff. Thus
the Harper government’s announcement in November 2013 that “All diplomatic
assets…will be marshalled on behalf of the private sector,” with a particular focus

on the Global South, was not a policy change, as some have suggested, but rather
a long-belated official confirmation of what Canadian diplomats have long done
under the cover of darkness.72
Development Aid
Development aid must also be situated centrally in any critical study of Canadian
intervention in Latin America. The Canadian government’s claim that its aid
programming is both robust and directed at the well-being of Latin Americans
themselves simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Canadian development aid is in
fact in the bottom half of international donor countries when controlled for by
Gross National Income.73 It was a paltry C$187.7 million to Latin American coun-
tries in 2011–2012. To put that in context, in 2012 Canadian mining companies
alone, as we have seen, earned C$19.3 billion, and three gold mining companies—
Barrick, Yamana and Goldcorp—earned a combined net profit of C$2.8 billion from
their operating mines. Remittances—money sent from migrants resident abroad to
their home countries—from Canada to Latin American countries in 2012 totalled
C$768 million, roughly four times official aid expenditures. Any discussion of aid
also needs to acknowledge that aid budgets include money spent on bureaucracy
and, in the case of Canada, supporting resource development in various ways,
which we discuss below. In other words, the budget figures cida provides are not
an accurate representation of what Canada is spending on aid, or how effectively
its spending is doled out.74 A World Bank study of the major donor countries and
International Financial Institutions (ifis) ranked Canada twenty-ninth out of
thirty-eight countries for the quality of its aid program.75
It is not just a matter of Canada being miserly with its aid budget. For Canadian
policymakers, aid, like the rest of the foreign policy toolkit, is about creating
the conditions for capital accumulation throughout the Global South.76 Julian
Fantino, former Minister for International Cooperation, argued bluntly enough
that cida’s role is “to make countries and people, trade and investment ready.”77
Fantino’s position, which is really echoing the sentiment of the Conservatives,
Liberals, and leaders at cida, is rooted in the notion that the only proper devel-
opmental path a country can take is one rooted in strong free markets and private
property rights—where profit reigns supreme, parts of which trickle-down to the
impoverished communities where the investment is targeted. As Fantino added
in an opinion piece for Embassy: “It is simply not plausible to expect sustainable
economic growth without a stable government or vibrant private sector.” Anyone
who suggests otherwise is merely “reverting to antiquated dogmas.”78 This was the
same argument used by the Harper government to defend its ftas with Colombia
and Honduras in spite of the severe political repression in these countries: every-
one is better in the end, as free markets will raise living standards and, somehow,
improve human rights.
This is the trickle-down theory of economics, spun off into a trickle-down
theory of human rights. It is theoretically spurious and empirically unsubstantiated
by the reality on the ground in these countries. In fact, Fantino et al.’s argument is
nothing more than political expediency, dressed up to justify Canadian plunder of
the wealth and resources of poorer and weaker countries. In the last several years,
for instance, Canadian aid has become increasingly tied to the Canadian mining
industry. Cida committed to spend C$100.7 million on mining-related training,
infrastructure, and reform projects in the region between 2002 and 2019, though
the bulk of that will be in the latter half of that time frame. Elizabeth Blackwood
and Veronika Stewart have highlighted the number of different ways cida sup-
ports Canada’s mining sector, all of which are of course cloaked in the rhetoric of
poverty reduction.79
At the same time, Latin America has become a target of Canadian aid policy in
recent years, factoring heavily in the former Conservative government’s Country
of Focus development program. Cida recently reduced the number of recipient
countries as part of this program, many of which are African, and among the poorest
in the world. The aid was redirected and concentrated on a much smaller number
of countries. The Latin American countries included in the program are Bolivia,
Honduras, Colombia, and Peru. Neither Colombia nor Peru is among the poorest
tier of Latin American nations. But what all the targeted Latin American nations
have in common is considerable untapped resource riches and the rapt attention
of Canadian investors. This aid orientation was summed up effectively by a spokes-
person for Stephen Harper: “Our government is strengthening its development
assistance in the Americas because this is our neighbourhood, where we have
significant interests.”80 Towards this end, cida initiated a wave of funding cuts to
long-time recipients of its financial support that did not fit into its more public and
aggressive desire to push Canadian resource projects, though we should be careful
not to overstate cida’s historic support for progressive or independent-minded
developmental aid organizations. The fate of the ecumenical group Kairos is a telling
example of cida’s political purges in the late 2000s. Cuts to Kairos have been linked
to its work with organizations critical of Canadian mining in Mexico (rather than its
possible connections to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against
Israel, as initially reported in the media).81 cida also cut funding to Development
and Peace and the Mennonite Central Committee, both organizations that have
worked with groups opposed to Canadian mining projects.82
Corporate Social Responsibility

While cida was cutting funding to organizations that did not share its stance
on Canadian resource investment, Corporate Social Responsibility (csr) began
receiving a growing part of Canada’s development budget. With the intensification
of protests against resource development projects in the late 1990s and 2000s, and
subsequently more international attention focused on the activities of companies,
the industry and the Canadian government have taken up csr as the new face of
large-scale industrial resource extraction. No discussion of mining or oil and gas
development can be had by industry or the government without rote reference to
csr. But csr is little more than an attempt to offer a social gloss to the predatory
activities of resource companies. The money offered communities, as we have noted,
is a pittance of what companies earn off their ecologically-destructive investments,
and it is always politicized, and frequently used to buy-off sections of the affected
communities. Furthermore, the premise for the small medical clinics, poorly-
funded schools, and soccer fields built by the companies is that the community
accepts the resource development—no mine, no financial assistance.
The companies see this as a necessary financial burden, the costs of which
they try to minimize. But the Harper government increasingly directed Canadian
development aid towards csr, helping companies with their already meagre csr
programs. The Canadian government was, in effect, offering state subsidies to
some of the largest mining companies in the world in their pursuit of super-profits,
taking on what is, in reality, the public relations expenses for advancing environ-
mentally-destructive, large-scale Canadian mining projects, which typically face
strong opposition from impacted communities. As Pierre Gratton of the Mining
Association of Canada notes, “These [csr] projects help improve the image of the
industry.”83 Harper, meanwhile, declared that csr programs “will contribute to a
more stable regional business and investment climate.”84
The Canadian aid-csr nexus projects are growing in number. They include a
C$200,000 two-year project being planned for Central America.85 In 2012, cida
announced a grant of C$25.6 million to establish the Canadian International
Institute for Extractive Industries as a partnership between the University of British
Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the École Polytechnique de Montreal.
According to Julian Fantino, it “will deliver knowledge on proven regulation and
oversight” to resource-rich countries.86 But the most publicly controversial pro-
ject to be announced thus far was cida’s decision in 2011 to partner directly with
Canadian mining companies and large ngos, and explicitly link Canadian aid,
via csr, to specific mining projects. C$26.7 million will be spent over five-and-
a-half years in this initial corporate partnering project in Africa (Ghana, Burkina
Faso) and Latin America (Barrick in Peru, and the Andean Regional Initiative for
Promoting Effective Corporate Social Responsibility in the Andes). In the case

of Barrick’s planned Peruvian open-pit mine, which is included in cida’s partner-
ship program, the company has faced stiff opposition from local farmers worried
about the dangers to local freshwater sources. The municipality in which the mine
is located also passed an ordinance for the creation of a conservation zone in the
mine area, just months before the cida announcement.87
csr is a tool of foreign intervention; it is being used to replace community
decision-making about foreign investment and the requirement under international
law that governments seek informed consent from indigenous peoples for develop-
ment projects that will impact them and their land. Instead, companies, now with
the active support of cida, are trying to buy communities off on the cheap. Rather
than respecting the sovereignty of indigenous communities, cida offers up C$5.2
million for the Indigenous Peoples’ Partnership Program to “build the capacity of
Latin American indigenous organizations” in “natural resource management.”88 It
finds willing proxies in large ngos to dangle rotting carrots in front of impover-
ished communities. And if csr efforts to front for the mining sector are successful,
Blackwood and Stewart remind us that cida does not even have mandatory regula-
tions enforcing the “socially responsible” character of the projects it funds.89 But
the true depth of Canada’s commitment to social responsibility is betrayed when
csr efforts fail: violence, intimidation, and the heavy hand of security forces are
usually not far behind, and the Canadian government’s public pronouncements
on csr transform into silence. Support for Canadian corporations can also be
gleaned from what the Canadian government does not do—most notably, both
Liberal and Conservative governments have refused to implement legislation to
hold Canadian companies accountable for human rights abuses and ecological
damage caused abroad.90
Extractive Commodities and Militarized Neoliberalism

A set of unique regional dynamics in Latin America over the last decade, related
to patterns of accumulation elsewhere in the world market (notably high rates of
growth in China), kicked off a concerted shift towards the acceleration of mining,
oil and gas extraction, and agro-industrial mono-crop cultivation throughout the
continent.91 Three basic processes are at work in the region.
First, as part of the region’s return to an extractivist, export-driven, com-
modity-fuelled growth regime, we are witnessing the intensification of forms of
accumulation by dispossession. On a wide scale, violent appropriation of natural
resources is precipitating the transfer of communal properties into the hands of
multinational capital. Second, the process is changing Latin America’s position
within the international division of labour. As extractive capitalism advances, so
too do processes of deindustrialization and the return to the region’s historic role
as provider of primary commodities to the core of the world system. With this
change in the region’s insertion into the world market come attendant dynamics
of renewed imperialism (this time in the form of multinational capital) and the
resurgence of enclave economies (such as with mining or sweatshop manufactur-
ing) with their characteristic traits of dependency.
Third, beginning in 2008, the rhythms of extractivism in Latin America have
intensified still further with the onset of the deepest crisis of global capitalism
since the Great Depression of the 1930s. This crisis ought to be understood in all
of its multidimensional richness; in other words, this is an economic crisis, but it
is also one of depleting natural resource energy supplies and the intensification of
competition between large powers to control these supplies; a food crisis (expressed
in dramatic price fluctuations) related to the acceleration of agro-industrial mono-
cropping and the financialization of the global agricultural sector; and an ecological
crisis, tightly linked to advancing climate change, among other factors.92
The extractive model of capitalism maturing in the Latin American context
today does not only involve the imposition of a logic of accumulation by dis-
possession, pollution of the environment, reassertion of power over the region
by multinational capital, and new forms of dependency. It also, necessarily and
systematically involves what we call militarized neoliberalism: violence, fraud,
corruption, and authoritarian practices on the part of militaries and security forces.
In Latin America, this has involved murder, death threats, assaults, and arbitrary
detention against opponents of resource extraction.
A fundamental part of militarized neoliberalism is the ideological attempt by
states to demonize social movement opponents as criminals, narco-traffickers, or
terrorists. Indigenous peasants resisting dispossession at the hands of a Canadian
mining company become part of the “dangerous classes” according to the logic of
such narratives. Under the guise of combating violent crime and the drug trade,
or “neutralizing” subversive movements, a perverse rhetoric of “democratic secu-
rity” has emerged, which justifies a range of changes meant to harden the coercive
apparatuses of the state: legal reforms that provide the police with greater power;
the legal system with tighter restrictions on individual and collective democratic
rights and liberties; the armed forces with the power to intervene in domestic social
conflicts; and paramilitary groups with ever greater impunity.93 In recent years the
most violent and nefarious examples of militarized neoliberalism in Latin America
have been the administrations of Felipe Calderón in Mexico (2006–2012), whose
militarization of the “war on drugs” led to tens of thousands of deaths; and Álvaro
Uribe in Colombia (2000–2010), whose turn toward “democratic security” meant
the full-scale state and para-military terrorization and dispossession of large swathes
of the country’s rural population. The entirety of the Central American corridor,
linking Colombia to Mexico, has likewise been permeated by the violent dynamics
of military neoliberalism, advanced, we argue, with the active support of Canada.94
Structure of the Book

In what follows, we trace the increasingly aggressive insertion of the Canadian
state and capital into the complex political economy of Latin America, with a
particular focus on two sub-regions: Central America and the Andes. Canadian
capital, especially in banking and natural resources development, plays a leading
role in capitalist accumulation throughout the Americas, while the Canadian state
is assertively pursuing the conditions amenable to Canadian investors: liberalized
markets, weak environmental regulatory regimes, and contained or repressed
social movements. The first section of the book looks at the dynamics of capitalist
expansion and resistance as they have played out in Central America. Canada has
positioned itself as an important player in the isthmus, supporting reactionary
forces, including the pro-coup actors in Honduras. The section is anchored by
the chapter on Honduras, which pivots on the 2009 coup against democratically-
elected President Manuel Zelaya, but also includes a detailed account of Canada’s
political-economic intervention in Guatemala and the rest of the region. The sec-
ond section of the book looks at the Andes. Canadian capital has major interests
in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia, while the Left resurgence in Latin America has
been strongest in the central and northern Andes. Thus there is a great deal at stake
for Canadian investors in a region where their interests are regularly challenged by
strong social movements and, occassionally, governments. As our chapters covering
Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela argue in detail, the Canadian state has
worked assiduously to weaken Andean social movements and the Ecuadorian and
Venezuelan governments, while simultaneously seeking to strengthen diplomatic
and military ties with conservative governments in Colombia and Peru.
In situating Canada as an imperialist power whose capitalist class has its own
objective interests to pursue in Latin America, our book stands outside the main-
stream and, indeed, much of the left-wing analyses available of Canada’s place in
the world. Mainstream observers have traditionally viewed Canada as a benign,
so-called middle power that must navigate and seek out a place for itself within
the complexities of a world order shaped by the (often competing) “great powers,”
and offer no effort to contextualize Canada’s position in the international hierarchy
of nations within the dynamics of global capitalist accumulation and the sharply
asymmetrical relations between countries of the capitalist core and those of the
Global South. Imperialism as a concept and the scale of the internationalization of
Canadian capital are completely eschewed in this literature. The traditional “criti-
cal” literature on Canada’s place in the world sometimes employs the concept of
imperialism, however this use is often accompanied by flawed empirical analysis

of Canadian capital—as truncated in its development and subordinated to more
powerful national capitals, such as British and, eventually, American—or presump-
tions based on dated and flawed empirical data. Drawing on dependency theory,
which was originally derived to explain the unequal insertion of Third World
nations into global capitalism, many left-wing analyses have argued that Canada
is also a dependency, qualifying it however as a rich one (since no serious thinker
can conflate Canada with the Third World). A recent example of this is Leo Panitch
and Sam Gindin’s The Making of Global Capitalism, in which the authors reiterate
the notion of Canadian dependence on the U.S. (with no empirical justification),
and argue that the rest of the world has been “Canadianized” in its relation with
the global hegemon.95 In other words, the argument of their work, in this respect,
rests on a faulty assumption.
The traditional literatures, then, obscure more than they reveal about Canada’s
role in the world. In the last several years, however, a growing body of work has
emerged that has challenged the status quo consensus and argued that Canada
must, in fact, be understood as imperialist. While this is not a homogeneous lit-
erature, authors who have offered an empirical and theoretical analysis of Canada
as an imperialist power include Todd Gordon, Greg Albo, Dru Oja Jay and Nik
Barry-Shaw, and Jerome Klassen.96 At the same time, and helping to inspire this
emerging literature, independent journalists and solidarity organizations have done
important work documenting individual cases of Canadian corporate malfeasance
in the Global South.97 By analyzing Canada within the context of the broader pat-
terns of global capitalist accumulation and North-South relations, and diving deeply
into the murky waters of Canada’s investments and practices in Latin America,
this book cuts against the grain of the traditional literature on Canada’s role in the
world and endeavours to make a contribution, with a new regional specificity, to
the emergent literature on Canadian imperialism.
Part ii
central America
31
Chapter 2
Authoritarian Capitalism:
The New Normal in Honduras
In the pre-dawn hours of June 28, 2009, the Honduran military overthrew the
social democratic government of Manuel Zelaya and replaced him temporarily
with Roberto Micheletti, a figure from a competing faction of Zelaya’s own Liberal
Party, bringing to an end the country’s halting democratic experiment, in place
since 1982.98 Having been expelled from the Organization of American States
(oas) for the interruption of democratic rule, elections designed to provide the
regime with a new legitimate face were carried out in November that year. Porfirio
“Pepe” Lobo, of the National Party, won this deeply fraudulent election and was
inaugurated on January 27, 2010 in the midst of mass resistance protests in the
streets of Tegucigalpa and elsewhere. The ousting of Zelaya was the second suc-
cessful coup d’état in the Western hemisphere since Alberto Fujimori’s auto-golpe,
or self-orchestrated coup, in Peru in 1992.99
The present Honduran moment encapsulates a wider fusion of neoliberalism and
militarism stretching across the greater Central American corridor, from Colombia
in the south to Mexico in the north.100 The full implementation of Barack Obama’s
proposed Plan Central America would finally bridge the synthesizing security
apparatuses of the isthmus, initiated with Plan Colombia under Bill Clinton and
continued with Plan Mexico under George W. Bush. The associated “war on drugs”
in Mexico carried out during the presidency of Felipe Calderón left at least 55,000
dead between 2006 and 2012, while the Colombian program has pumped US$3.6
billion into the militarization of counternarcotics regulation and enforcement in
that country since 2000.101
32
Authoritarian Capitalism: The New Normal In Honduras 33
Cementing the regimes of Lobo and his successor Juan Orlando Hernández’s
clasp over Honduran society is a lynchpin in the coercive component of emerg-
ing accumulation strategies of North American capitals and their domestic allies
in Central America, traversing as they do the conflict-ridden sectors of open-pit
mining, hydroelectrical development, tourism, biofuel plantations, carbon-credit
forests, and low-waged textiles and manufacturing—the maquiladora zones.102 “fdi
flows into Honduras totalled US$1.014 billion in 2011, 27% more than the figure
for 2010,” according to the latest report issued by the United Nations Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (eclac). “The largest inves-
tor in Honduras was the United States (28.6% of the total), followed by Canada
(18.4%) and Mexico (15%).”103
This is the complex regional scenario that needs to be understood if we are to
unpack how Honduras has become an important anchor to Canada’s engagement
with Central America, an engagement driven by the promotion of strong property
rights for capital and the containment of challenges to these rights through dip-
lomatic, economic, and security strategies. At its core, then, this chapter has two
principal objectives. First, it provides an overarching account of the multifaceted
components of Canadian imperialism in Honduras since the coup of 2009. Second,
it attempts to situate Canadian geopolitics in Honduras against that country’s own
complicated historical development and the ongoing forms of popular resistance
to the status quo that persist into the present. Employing such an approach, we try
to avoid any easy portrayal of the Honduran people as merely the passive victims
of imperial abuse.
The chapter begins with a deep reflection on the historical foundations of
contemporary Honduras, charting the dynamics of counterinsurgency during the
Cold War and the neoliberal pacification of society in the 1990s, as well the legacy
of new forms of violent insecurity and inequality that Cold War politics and neo-
liberal economics left in their wake in the early twenty-first century. Against this
backdrop, the chapter then situates the rise of Zelaya to office and maps out the
principal characteristics of his short-lived administration. The following sections
explore Ottawa’s post-coup diplomacy in relation to Honduras, including Canada’s
key role in the so-called Tegucigalpa-San José Accord, the sanitization of the record
of human rights abuses under Micheletti and Lobo, the reintegration of Honduras
into the “international community,” and the solidification of what is known as
the Cartagena Accord in 2011. At this stage, we return again to the agency of the
Honduran popular classes, showing how a heroic resistance movement has been
forged in the most difficult of circumstances to challenge the domestic ruling class
and the aligned interests of imperial capital. With that context in place, it is possible
then to understand the deeper, underlying motivations of the Canadian interven-
tion, beginning with a materialist exploration of Canadian capital in the country,
particularly in mining, maquilas, and tourism. Those material interests help to

ground the closing sections, which analyze Canada’s longer term economic engage-
ment plans in Honduras and the underlying role of the new Canada-Honduras Free
Trade Agreement within those plans. The conclusion to the chapter reconsiders all
of these complexities in light of the results of the November 2013 general election
in Honduras. It provides an assessment of the political significance of that election,
as well as offering a socio-economic panorama of the present.
Historical Foundations
The modern history of Honduras is the paradigmatic narrative of a Banana Republic.
The banana industry developed relatively rapidly from its nascent beginnings in the
1860s. By 1928, three American corporations—Cuyamel Fruit Company, Standard
Fruit Company, and the United Fruit Company—oversaw the production and
export of more bananas from Honduran soil than any other country in the world.
These old-school multinationals consequently dominated domestic political as
well as economic life. The banana crop accounted for more than 90 percent of
the country’s export profile.104 But this was also a typical enclave sector, situated
narrowly on the northern Atlantic coast, which was inaccessible from most other
parts of the country by rail or road. Prices were subject to the whims of fluctuating
international supply and demand. In the wake of the Great Depression, bananas
took a considerable beating and coffee emerged as an important parallel source
of foreign exchange, one just as vulnerable, however, to massive peaks and valleys
in the world market.
Built on two shaky pillars, the Honduran political economy in the first half of
the twentieth century was the “most backward” in Central America, with “both
the subordinate and dominant classes…historically the least developed,” allowing
for, “the vulgar domination of the country by foreign companies.”105 In the 1950s
and 1960s capitalist modernization slowly began to penetrate social relations
throughout much of the rest of the country, and alter its mode of incorporation
into the world market—export diversification expanded to encompass cotton,
cattle, and sugar, alongside the earlier staple crops. The political expression of this
evolving social structure took form in the shape of two malleable and faction-ridden
parties—the Liberal Party, which first appeared in the late nineteenth century,
and the National Party, a split from the Liberals, which made its presence felt in
the early twentieth century. The two parties have since monopolized the official
sphere of public life until the present day, apart from sometimes lengthy military
interregnums. The longest such period of successive military regimes lasted from
1963 until 1982, after which a very restricted transition to electoral democracy
occurred, followed a decade later by a neoliberal transformation of the economy.106
Outside the confines of the Liberal, National, and authoritarian spheres of

official regime politics, vibrant traditions of peasant and worker radicalism began
to take root alongside and against capitalist expansion in the middle part of the
twentieth century. The most explicit asseveration of workers’ new-found capacities
was expressed in the 1954 strike against the United Fruit Company. “It marked a
historic turn,” suggests historian Walter LaFeber. “The society loosened and even
began to liberalize as certain workers’ rights were recognized for the first time.”107
In straightforwardly economic terms the workers only achieved small wage hikes,
but politically they won legal recognition for unions and the right to organize. The
reaction of Cold Warriors in both Washington and Tegucigalpa to Communist
participation in the 1954 strike insinuated itself over the coming decades into the
state’s relationship with the Honduran labour movement. The guardians of liberty
exercised blunt coercion against radicals in concert with consensual strategies of
cooptation, such as the sponsorship of “free and democratic” anti-Communist
labour organizations.108
The countryside, meanwhile, witnessed a veritable explosion of peasant mobi-
lization beginning in the 1960s, not least because of the Cuban revolutionary
example in 1959. Peasant mobilizations and occupations over the course of the
next two decades forced military governments to redistribute close to two hundred
thousand hectares of land to landless and land-poor rural dwellers.109 These land
struggles, intersecting with labour actions in the banana plantations, persisted
into the 1980s and 1990s in various forms.110 Peasant militancy in the early 1960s
erupted initially in the same area of the northern Atlantic coast as the location of
the strike of 1954. The peasants were spurred by expropriations of their land as
the United Fruit Company expanded its operations. They formed the Federación
Nacional de Campesinos Hondureños (Federation of Honduran Peasants,
fenach), an independent and militant organization rooted in mass direct action
oriented toward the occupation or recovery of dispossessed ejidal, or communal,
land. fenach was founded with the help of former union leaders still in the area
after having been fired for their roles in the 1954 strike, leftist political activists,
radicalized students, and incipient revolutionary guerrilla movements.111
The response to peasant mobilization from the Honduran state and its American
imperial backer mirrored in many respects their answer to labour activism. Efforts at
cooptation were articulated most visibly in the overtly anti-Communist Asociación
Nacional de Campesinos Hondureños (National Association of Honduran
Peasants), “organized with substantial assistance from the United States through
the afl-cio and its Latin American arm, the Inter-American Regional Organization
of Labor.” The coercive side became most visible after the overthrow of the civilian
regime in 1963 and the forceful liquidation of fenach as an organization: “the
leaders who were caught were jailed, its offices and archives were demolished, and
its membership repressed.”112 The clampdown increased in intensity throughout

the 1980s, as we will see momentarily. In spite of the fact that state coercion was
moderate when compared to the horrors being orchestrated by the dictatorships
in neighbouring El Salvador and Guatemala, illegal detentions, disappearances,
and targeted killings were nonetheless common in Honduras.113
The United States had established a special formal relationship with the
Honduran military in 1954, through which the Hondurans began to receive aid
to “professionalize” their military.114 Still, it took a sea change in Central American
politics—ignited initially by the successful Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua
in 1979, and fuelled further by simultaneous mass guerrilla insurgencies in El
Salvador and Guatemala—to solidify and accelerate the special U.S.–Honduran
military relationship. Internally, Honduras was undergoing momentous change in
the late 1970s and early 1980s. The country was suffering a major economic crisis,
as income per capita plummeted by roughly 12 percent over the first four years
of the 1980s.115 Elections were held in 1981 for the first time since 1963, bringing
to office Liberal Party candidate Rafaél Suazo Córdova. Even as the transition to
electoral democracy unfolded, however, the role of the military in domestic affairs
was actually expanding with an unprecedented inflow of American aid. Honduras
became a principal staging ground in the American effort to bring down the
Sandinista government and prevent similar guerrilla movements from coming to
power in El Salvador and Guatemala.
Cold War Counterinsurgency

Partway through 1980, Jimmy Carter had already sent an American major general
to inform the Hondurans of their role as a “bulwark of anti-Communism against
the pressures of popular revolt.”116 Under the subsequent administration of Ronald
Reagan, though, the crusade against the Communist dominos acquired unforeseen
dimensions. Eight hundred Honduran soldiers were cycled through the infamous
School of the Americas for military training in the 1980s as the country became the
pivotal base of operations for Central American counterinsurgency.117 Immediately
after Reagan’s inauguration, the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency (cia),
William Casey, was briefed by Honduran officers who “pitched their idea of organ-
izing fleeing members of Nicaragua’s National Guard into a counterrevolutionary
expedition that could destabilize the Sandinista government.”118 Thus the Contras
were born. Honduras effectively metamorphosed into “the rearguard for 20,000
Nicaraguan contra troops, whose supply lines involved a vast network stretching
from U.S. and Honduran military bases to the contra camps along the border with
Nicaragua.”119 At the same time, the Honduran border with El Salvador became
another important front against left-wing guerrilla operations in that country.120
Between 1980 and 1992, Honduras received US$1.6 billion in economic and
military aid from the United States.121 The American Empire established “its own
military and airforce bases, intelligence centers, and regional command posts, and
a training center for Salvadoran soldiers run by U.S. commandos, until it was closed
down in 1985.”122 American aid provided Honduran forces with mobile training
teams of U.S. personnel, artillery, night vision capabilities, high-tech communica-
tions equipment, reconnaissance planes, and patrol boats to police its coasts.123
Moreover, Honduras provided sanctuaries from which counterinsurgent Salvadoran
pilots, under cia direction, could launch air attacks on Nicaragua as well as supply
Contra forces with resources to sustain their campaigns of terror.124 As early as 1983:
The U.S. operation was so large that the cia opened a press bureau in a
Honduran Holiday Inn to brag about its exploits. Some 300 to 400 North
American military personnel worked in the small country. The 116 mem-
bers of the U.S. Embassy made it one of the largest in all Latin America.125
This formal support from the U.S. state was fortified by an allied international
network of actors supporting the anti-Communist efforts in Central America. The
intricate web included the authoritarian junta in Argentina until its demise after
the Falklands War in 1982, the Saudi Arabian, Taiwanese, Panamanian, and Israeli
states, and a variety of non-state components, including conservative religious
organizations of the American Christian Right, private mercenaries and arms
dealers, security firms, and drug traffickers.126
If, on the one hand, the military build-up in Honduras was geopolitically
motivated by the country’s propitious geographical proximity to the Nicaraguan
and Salvadoran fronts, it also served to capacitate domestic coercion against real
and potential popular resistance—or “preemptive counterinsurgency” at home.
“Even though Honduras did not possess a major guerrilla insurgency,” anthropolo-
gist Lesley Gill observes, “military hard-liners targeted students, unionists, and
peasants, as well as anyone who belonged to political parties or groups consid-
ered leftist.”127 At a minimum, 290 teachers, union activists, peasants, and labour
militants “disappeared” between 1980 and 1984 at the hands of the Honduran
state’s coercive apparatus. Another wave of resistance against the militarization of
Honduran society in supposedly democratic times was led in 1986 and 1987 by
peasant movements, drawing on their long historical traditions of struggle. The
state riposte was a rash of assassinations against both peasant and labour leaders.128
Trade union and peasant federations, radical Christian grassroots communi-
ties inspired by liberation theology, and militant student organizations that had
cropped up in the struggles of the 1970s continued to mount resistance even as
some were coopted into the party system as electoral politics became increasingly
important. These social movements were joined, on the one hand, by human rights
organizations and, on the other, by a small number of ephemeral guerrilla fronts
in the early 1980s. In response:
Honduras was visited…by counterinsurgency and state terrorist methods

never before used in the country, such as “anti-terrorist” laws, disappear-
ances, and state-organized death squads, as the population fell victim to
the same mass violation of human rights as in neighbouring countries.129
This violent cleansing of popular movements was the sine qua non for the
subsequent introduction of neoliberalism. “With a few important exceptions,”
historian Greg Grandin has observed, “state- and elite-orchestrated preventive
and punitive terror was key to ushering in neoliberalism in Latin America. The
prerequisite for the rapid economic restructuring that took place throughout the
Americas beginning full throttle in the 1980s,” he remind us, “had as much to do
with the destruction of mass movements as it did with the rise of new financial
elites invested in global markets.”130
Neoliberal Pacification
With the end of the Cold War on the international scene, the defeat of the Sandinista
revolution in Nicaragua in the 1990 elections, and the ending of the civil wars in
El Salvador and Guatemala, the region transitioned from a period of state terror
and guerrilla struggle in the 1980s to an epoch of neoliberal consolidation over the
course of the 1990s—what historian James Dunkerley has called the “pacification
of Central America.”131 With its own particularities, the trajectory of Honduras
largely mirrored this regional turn.
The ascendance to the presidency by Rafael Callejas of the National Party in
the 1990 elections marked the earnest inauguration of neoliberal restructuring in
the country. Callejas, an agricultural economist, banker, and member of one of the
wealthiest families in Honduras, headed up a newly hegemonic wing of the National
Party, dominated by neoliberal technocrats and externally-oriented sections of the
Honduran bourgeoisie.132 Indeed, a defining feature of politics since the neoliberal
transition has been the emergence of internecine factional conflicts within the still-
dominant Liberal and National parties, as externally- and domestically-oriented
sections of Honduran capital come into conflict—the former (and more powerful)
wing of capital has interests in sustaining and deepening neoliberal restructuring
based on the emergent export-oriented model of accumulation, and the latter
(weaker) fraction, who remain tied to features of the domestic market which are
in decline, is compelled to forge contradictory and episodic populist alliances with
the popular classes.133
Callejas introduced the first of three structural adjustment packages (saps)

implemented in Honduras in the 1990s, agreeing to a range of measures advocated
by the International Monetary Fund (imf), the Inter-American Development
Bank, the World Bank, and other foreign lenders. Callejas ushered in an austerity
program, consumption tax hikes, liberalization of price controls, privatization of
various state-owned enterprises, and tariff reductions. These measures constituted
the pillars of a wider orientation in political economy toward free markets, tourism,
non-traditional exports, free trade zones, and maquila (assembly plant manufactur-
ing) promotion, an orientation that would continue under successive Liberal and
National governments over the next decade and a half.134
Roberto Reina, representing a Centre-Left populist current within the Liberals,
won the next presidential elections in 1993. With a public profile as a human
rights leader, Reina campaigned on putting a stop to political corruption and cur-
tailing military powers. He temporarily dampened some of the military control
over social and political life; however, he simultaneously deepened and extended
the neoliberal model when he agreed to a new sap. His Liberal successor in the
presidency, Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé (1997–2001), represented the far-
Right of the party, but given a spike in urban and rural protests against neoliberal
restructuring under Reina, even Flores was obliged to campaign on a platform
critical of imf loan conditionalities in the 1997 elections. Of course, once in office,
Flores changed tune and set to work expanding the maquila industry, tourism,
and the non-traditional agro-export sector, not least through the implementation
of a third sap.135 Flores was succeeded by the ultra-conservative Ricardo Maduro
(2001–2005) of the National Party, who continued neoliberal orthodoxy in the
economy and reintroduced military control in civilian affairs through a dramatic
escalation of the “war on gangs.”
One consequence of neoliberal restructuring in the countryside has been the
dramatic dispossession of large numbers of peasants from their land and their
subsequent migration either to the United States or to the slums of the major
cities—principally to the capital Tegucigalpa in the Southwest, with its richer
traditions of left-wing activism, or to the free trading industrial city of San Pedro
Sula, characterized more by the dominance of the Honduran Right in social,
cultural, and political affairs.136 Land use patterns and rural class structures were
changing dramatically. Rural poverty rates rose to above 70 percent by the late
1990s, according to World Bank figures.137 By the early 2000s, nearly half of the
rural population operated farms with less than five hectares of land. Rural landless
constituted an additional 27 percent of the economically active rural population.
These peasants were increasingly pushed into semiproletarian or proletarian status
as they were increasingly forced to sever their permanent ties to the land to seek a
variety of forms of nonfarm employment.138 Geographically, almost 80 percent of
small-holder farming in the country takes place on hillsides, as the fertile valleys
came to be dominated by large foreign agro-industrial capitals devoted to “livestock
production, sugar cane, bananas, and palm oil cultivation.”139
Some of the most striking expressions of these new trends in the Honduran
agrarian structure were to be found in the Bajo Aguán region. “Countrywide,
approximately 30,500 hectares (over 75,000 acres) of peasant lands acquired
through the agrarian reform were sold between 1990 and 1994,” according to
Tanya Kerssen:
These lands were concentrated in the most resource-rich parts of the

country: areas with the most fertile soils, water resources and access
to communication, energy and transport infrastructure. So while the
national average for land re-concentration during this four-year period
was less than 10 per cent, in the Aguán Valley and Atlantic coast regions
(areas suitable for high-value crops like bananas and African palm) it was
over 70 per cent. In Aguán, of the 28,365 hectares awarded to peasant
cooperatives by the agrarian reform, 20,930 were sold off. Three oil palm
magnates were the primary beneficiaries: René Morales Carazo, Reynaldo
Canales and the richest man in Honduras, Miguel Facussé Barjum (who
has earned the nickname palmero de la muerte or “palm grower of death”).
In all, 40 peasant cooperatives lost their lands in Aguán. This is also where
one of the strongest movements for land rights would emerge.140
Within a few years of the first sap in 1990, foreign direct investment flooded into
five new government-sponsored, export processing zones, as well as five privately
run industrial parks, in which the majority of workers were cheap, female, and
non-unionized. A maquila workforce of only 9,000 in 1990 ballooned to 20,000
in 1991, 48,000 in 1994, and 100,000 by the turn of the century.141
By 2007, value-added export earnings from the maquila sector amounted to
US$1.2 billion, relative to US$203.7 million in 1996. This made maquiladoras
the second most important source of foreign exchange after family remittances
flowing in from the United States. Parallel to the maquila sector and remittances,
tourism revenue increased from US$29 million in 1990 to US$556.7 million in
2007.142 fdi eclipsed old records in 2007, reaching US$815.9 million, the better
part of which was directed toward the maquiladoras, transport, communications
(particularly cell phones), the financial sector, and tourism.143 The same record-
breaking year, however, brought with it the slow beginning of a fall in U.S. demand
for Honduran manufactured exports, as well as increased competition from lower-
cost producers in Asia.
In spite of an influx of fdi and positive appraisals from the international financial
institutions regarding the pace and character of neoliberal reform, macroeconomic

growth in Honduras over the course of the 1990s only peaked above 4 percent for
one year (1997), and the decade was book-ended by periods of negative growth.
The next decade, though, witnessed a distinct shift. Between 2003 and 2007, “Latin
America experienced the most remarkable period of economic growth since the
long post-World War II boom that ended in the mid-1970s,” generated by “the
extraordinary combination of four factors: high commodity prices, booming inter-
national trade, exceptional financing conditions and high levels of remittances.”144
The economy of Honduras echoed these trends. Together with remittances, high
commodity prices,145 and primed demand in the U.S., Honduras qualified in 2005
for debt relief as part of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (hipc) initiative.146
Having fully complied with the rigors of an imf poverty reduction and growth
facility program by 2004, Honduras became eligible for an hipc facility; the initia-
tive was scheduled to bring US$1.2 billion in debt relief between 2005 and 2015,
some of which is supposed to go toward reducing poverty in Honduras as part of
United Nations Millennium Development Goals.147
gdp accelerated quite rapidly between 2003 and 2007, surpassing 6 percent in
2005, 2006, and 2007, before tumbling with the onset of the global economic crisis
in 2008. The global crisis, and particularly its American dimensions, began to hit
Honduras in 2008 through weakening demand for Honduran exports, declining
family remittances, and truncated inflows of foreign direct investment.148 gdp
growth rate fell to 4.2 percent that year. However, these mechanisms transmuting
the crisis from the core of the world system really only took full effect in 2009,
as gdp growth entered into negative territory at -2.1, with a modest and fragile
recovery in 2010 and 2011.
In spite of high growth rates in the mid-2000s, social conditions at the end
of this period remained abysmal. Of 177 countries listed in the United Nations
Development Program’s Human Development Index for 2009, Honduras ranked
112. Of the Latin American and Caribbean countries, only Bolivia (113), Guyana
(114), Guatemala (122), Nicaragua (124), and Haiti (149) faired worse.149 By
2011, Honduras had dropped to 121.150 Seventy-five percent of the population lived
below the poverty line and 38 below the indigence line in 1990, the inaugural year of
neoliberalism.151 By 2002, just prior to the commodities boom, those figures had in
fact risen to 77 and 54 percent, respectively. By 2007, in the wake of the boom and
auspicious circumstances for improving social conditions, poverty and indigence
levels had only receded to 69 and 46 percent, respectively.152 In 2009 poverty and
indigence figures were 65.7 and 41.8 percent, while by 2010, in the fallout of the
2009 contraction, these had worsened to 67.4 and 42.8, one of only two countries in
the region—the other being Mexico—to register a “significant increase in poverty
and indigence rates” in all of Latin America and the Caribbean over this period.153
Likewise, the figures of national income distribution depicted in Table I illus-

trate regression rather than progress since the outset of neoliberalism, in spite of
the favourable economic environment for radical redistribution between 2003
and 2007. The marginal drop in the proportion of national income going to the
richest 10 percent of the population between 2002 and 2007 was largely passed
on to the next highest 20 percent of income earners. The poorest 40 percent of
the population still took home less of the national income in 2007 than they did
in 1990, and the boom years of the 2000s actually erased some of the extremely
modest gains they had made over the course of the 1990s. Even after the boom
years, the basic infrastructural underpinnings of the country’s economy were still
massively underdeveloped, with the railway network first established to serve the
banana companies having gone into disuse—the majority of the 785 kilometres
of track missing from theft—and only 21.3 percent of the 15,628 kilometres of
primary, secondary, and municipal roads having been paved.154 According to the
country’s official statistics, 11 percent of households are overcrowded, one in
six people over fifteen years of age is illiterate, and approximately 15 percent of
households go without an adequate sewage system.155
Table I: Distribution of National Income in Honduras
Year Poorest 40% Next 30% 20% Below Richest 10%

1990 10.2 19.7 27.1 43.1
1999 11.8 22.9 29.0 36.5
2002 11.4 21.7 27.6 39.4
2006 8.8 22.5 29.3 39.3
2007* 10.1 23.5 29.5 37.0
* Projected figures.
Source: Derived from cepal, Panorama Social de América Latina 2008. Santiago: Comisión Económica para América
Latina y el Caribe (cepal), 2008: 230.
Violent Insecurity
The rural and urban popular classes resisted the neoliberal assault on their liveli-
hoods over the 1990s and into the 2000s, but this epoch was also notable for its
persistent state repression and punctuated remilitarization of politics under the
aegis of the “war on crime” and the “war on gangs.” Peasant movements remained
an important social force in Honduran politics. Indeed, Tegucigalpa acted as the
headquarters for probably the most important transnational peasant movement
in the world, the Vía Campesina, between 1996 and 2004.156 Nonetheless, the
collective power of Honduran peasants to resist the reigning power structure at
home began to diminish between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s, as the politi-
cal economy of the countryside plunged into precipitous decline. In the labour
movement, banana workers—and increasingly women banana workers—“struggled
to survive plantation closures, new production systems, and other machinations
of the banana corporations—not to mention Hurricane Mitch.”157 New women’s
groups, worker and peasant organizations, and community associations continued
to emerge in the dozens over the course of the 1990s and engaged in different
modes of struggle.158 By 2003, urban social movements against the privatization of
state-owned utilities and public services were able to draw 25,000 people into the
streets.159 All the same, by the late 1990s the overarching character of Honduran
political and social life was made manifest not in effective rural and urban class
struggle from below, but in the emergence of new and violent social pathologies
among the poor and dispossessed, alongside the remilitarization of the state. The
latter was ostensibly meant to ameliorate plebeian violence, but in reality acted as
the coercive guarantee for the preservation of the neoliberal order.
Violent crime has increased dramatically throughout Latin America in the
wake of neoliberal restructuring.160 Central America is at the leading edge of
this phenomenon. The burgeoning lumpenproletariat, tossed out of the peasant
world and refused admittance to the formal urban economy, was thrust cavalierly
over the last two decades into a setting in which crime became one means of
survival. The isthmus was transformed into a main thoroughfare for the shipping
routes of drug cartels, with large numbers of unemployed, demobilized (but still
armed) ex-combatants from the civil wars, and repatriated gang members from
California—deported by the United States government in large numbers in
the mid-1990s—filling the ranks of the lower echelons of the trade.161 “At best,”
Grandin argues,
the energy of the dispossessed is channeled into movements demanding

a social-democratic redistribution of wealth, as happened in Bolivia and
Argentina during their recent meltdowns. At worst, the poor seek remedy
through more vengeful outlets, such as right-wing nationalism, religious
fundamentalism, or street-gang brutality.162
In the Honduran scenario, anthropologist Jon Wolseth concurs: “In the face
of social suffering caused by neoliberal economics, evangelical Christian faiths
have offered disenfranchised youth in Honduras a spiritual response to individual
pain while gangs have offered self-empowerment predicated on interpersonal
violence.”163
In Honduras, in 2006, there were 3,108 killings, a yearly average of 46.2 violent
deaths per 100,000 people, which exceeded by five times the global average.164 The
two principal gangs operating in the country are Mara-18 and Mara Salvatrucha
(ms), and the state has used their presence as a justification for the remilitariza-
tion of security and politics. In the early 2000s, the municipal government of
Tegucigalpa initiated a 2 a.m. curfew in the capital, reinforced shortly thereafter by
the mano dura, or iron fist, policy of President Ricardo Maduro at the federal level
in 2002. “As the streets begin emptying at night,” one reporter explains, “combined
military-police units sweep into the city’s barrios marginales—the poor neighbor-
hoods surrounding the city, on the slopes of the surrounding hillsides, also known
as the ‘belt of misery’—with the stated aim of disrupting youth gangs and arrest-
ing their members.” Harking back to the dark days of the 1980s, these incursions
“have names like Operation Cage, Thunderclap, and Patria,” and occur weekly.165
While the mano dura approach to crime has resolutely failed to achieve any
reduction in the number of homicides, it has filled the country’s prisons to the
brink of collapse, and, most importantly, allowed the state to reverse the embryonic
civilian control over the military set in motion through various measures taken in
1996 under the Liberal presidency of Roberto Reina. Under Maduro, the divisions
between the military and police were dissolved, as was any pretence of civilian
control over the coercive apparatuses of the state.166 For example, his Operación
Guerra Contra la Delincuencia (War Operation against Crime), deployed 10,000
police officers into the streets under the authority of a military official. Such tactics
facilitated the continuation of “social cleansing” methods—already more than
1,500 street youth were killed between 1998 and 2002 through a combination of
state death squads and private security forces—and an intensification of politically-
motivated assassinations of social movement activists.167
A few representative examples of the political violence will suffice. Ernesto
Sandoval, a leading activist in the Comité de Derechos Humanos de Honduras
(Human Rights Comittee of Honduras, codeh), was assassinated in February
1998.168 Padre Tamayo, a well-known priest and environmental activist with the
Environmental Movement of Olancho (mao), had a bounty of US$40,000 taken
out on his head and has survived multiple kidnappings and murder attempts—not
least among these experiences was the moment at a mao rally in 2001 against
rampant deforestation by multinational logging companies when
Padre Tomayo was isolated by the head of the local police, who forced
a live grenade into his mouth before moving quickly away. “I took it out
and threw it as far as I could. It exploded in a nearby field,” he says, smil-
ing. “Now the police have a case against me for causing a disturbance.”169
Human rights lawyers and judges were routinely murdered in the mid-2000s, the
offices of social movements ransacked, and those identified with the Left murdered
or intimidated into submission with death threats.170 This militarization of politics

and society, operating under the guise of a war on crime, is actually the first line of
defence for those benefiting from the violent neoliberal order. And it is only with
this historical backdrop clearly in mind that we can begin to understand the rela-
tive ease with which Roberto Micheletti organized and orchestrated the violent
and repressive coup against Zelaya in late June 2009.
The Zelaya Interregnum

Zelaya, a wealthy ranch owner and business magnate in the logging indus-
try, assumed the presidential office in January 2006 as leader of the dissident
Movimiento Esperanza Liberal (Liberal Hope Movement) current inside the tra-
ditional Liberal Party. His ascension to government took place roughly eight years
into a significant, if uneven, social and political shift to the Left across large parts
of Latin America, and close to a decade into what has proven to be a prolonged
legitimacy crisis of the neoliberal model. At the same time, Zelaya’s rise to office
coincided with the intensification of efforts by imperialism and the Latin American
Right to turn back the clock.171
Zelaya had been a Liberal congressperson for three consecutive terms between
1985 and 1999, and he headed up the World Bank-funded Fondo Hondureño de
Inversión Social (Honduran Social Investment Fund) between 1994 and 1999. In
the presidential campaign of late 2005, he faced off against National Party chal-
lenger Porfirio Lobo Sosa. The campaign pivoted almost exclusively around the
issue of violent crime and youth gangs, with Lobo Sosa pledging to continue the
mano dura approach and to reintroduce the death penalty, which had been abol-
ished in 1937. Zelaya, by contrast, opposed the death penalty and the antigang
legislation, arguing that this type of repressive framework in the past had actually
exacerbated the country’s crime problem. Instead, he offered vague promises of
new social programs to alleviate high levels of poverty and unemployment, which
he believed to be central factors driving youth into the gangs.
Once in the presidency, Zelaya made some modest moves toward progressive
social and economic reform. He introduced free school enrolment, raised the
salaries of teachers, and made initial efforts to reduce rising fuel costs.172 He also
increased the minimum wage by 60 percent, from US$6 to 9.60 per day, apologized
for the executions of street children at the hands of security forces in the 1990s,
advocated the legalization of some narcotics as opposed to escalating the “war on
drugs,” and vetoed legislation that would have made the sale of the morning-after
pill illegal.173 In the domain of natural resource extraction, Zelaya introduced
mining legislation for approval by Congress that outlined stricter environmental
regulations, including the prohibition of open-pit mines. A new Forest Law passed
in September 2007 introduced measures to prevent further ecological collapse,

designating 87.7 percent of Honduran national territory as protected area.174 In
spite of pressure from business groups and right-wing factions of his own party, the
president also refused to privatize the state-owned electricity company, Empresa
Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (National Electric Energy Company of Honduras),
and the telecommunications firm, Hondutel.175
At the same time, it is easy to exaggerate the leftist turn of the Liberals under
Zelaya, which, at least in domestic policy, never escaped the parameters of modest
reformism.176 Public spending on education remained at merely 3.8 percent of gdp.
In April 2006 Honduras joined the Dominican Republic–Central American Free
Trade Agreement with the United States, an accord meant to abolish tariffs and
other trade barriers and establish an environment attractive to foreign direct invest-
ment, particularly export-oriented multinational firms with an interest in making
Honduras their launching pad.177 Two years later, in April 2008, Zelaya’s govern-
ment signed a standby agreement with the imf that “commits the government to
maintaining macroeconomic stability, lowering current spending (particularly
the government’s wage bill), achieving a fiscal deficit of 1.5% of gdp, and focusing
public expenditure on infrastructure and poverty reduction.”178 What is more, to the
extent that Zelaya enacted social reforms, it was in no small part due to consistent
and intense pressures exercised from below through increasingly militant trade
unions, peasant organizations, and student groups influenced by revolutionary
Left ideologies and liberation theology. There were no fewer than 722 officially
recorded social conflicts over the first thirty-two months of his presidency, against
privatization and free trade, and for salary increases and subsidies to control the
price of the basic breadbasket.179
As noted, Honduras entered a steep economic downturn in 2008 associated
with the spiraling global crisis, and particularly the deepening slump in the United
States, Honduras’ main export market and source of tourists, remittances, and
foreign direct investment. It was in this context that Zelaya pragmatically opted for
joining alba (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) in September
of that year. As part of the deal,
Venezuela…offered to buy Honduran bonds worth [US]$100m, whose

proceeds will be spent on housing for the poor. Mr. Chávez also offered a
[US]$30m credit line for farming, 100 tractors, and 4m low-energy light
bulbs (Cuba will send technicians to help to install them, as well as more
doctors and literacy teachers).180
The international financial press saw this move on the part of Zelaya not as “a matter
of ideological association, but rather one driven by financial need.”181
Nonetheless, as history has indicated, it is hardly necessary for Latin American

governments to adopt social revolutionary measures before the traditional elite
and conservative military forces feel threatened and act violently in protection of
their interests. Tensions sharpened in the lead-up to the Zelaya-supported non-
binding referendum to be held at the end of June 2009. This popular plebiscite
was to ask Hondurans if they wanted to hold a second binding referendum dur-
ing the national elections in November on whether or not to call a Constituent
Assembly. Honduras’ current constitution was adopted during military rule in the
1980s. Zelaya called on the military to distribute the ballots for the referendum
after the Supreme Court had ruled that the referendum was illegal.182 The head
of the Honduran armed forces, General Romeo Orlando Vásquez Velásquez,
refused to comply. Zelaya dismissed Vásquez as head of the armed forces, and
the general went on to play the leading military role in the coup against Zelaya.183
Once Vásquez had been fired, the Minister of Defence, Ángel Orellana, resigned
and the Supreme Court ruled that Vásquez’s dismissal was illegal. The majority of
Congress, including the right-wing faction of the Liberal party led by Micheletti,
turned against the president.184 A medley of conservative social forces saw their
opportunity and converged around the overthrow of Zelaya:
Conservative evangelicals and Catholics—including Opus Dei, a formi-

dable presence in Honduras—detested him because he refused to ban the
“morning-after” pill. The mining, hydroelectric and biofuel sector didn’t
like him because he didn’t put state funds and land at their disposal. The
law-and-order crowd hated him because he apologized on behalf of the
state for a program of “social cleansing” that took place in the 1990s,
which included the execution of street children and gang members. And
the generals didn’t like it when he tried to assert executive control over
the military.185
According to the country’s leading human rights organization, Committee of

Family Members of the Disappeared of Honduras (cofadeh), there were forty-
three politically motivated assassinations of civilians associated with the resistance
movement between the time of the coup and the end of February 2012. cofadeh
acknowledges that this figure is a low estimate, as intimidation and fear of reprisal
prevents communities and family members from reporting many such deaths. In
November 2011, a report issued by Rights Action listed a higher figure of fifty-nine
politically motivated assassinations. Belying official announcements of national
reconciliation and a return to democracy following Lobo’s victory, repression
intensified immediately after he took power. cofadeh reported 250 violations of
human rights in Lobo’s first three months alone.186
According to the United Nations, Honduras continues to have the highest

murder rate in the world. Reporters without Borders has signposted the country
as one of the most dangerous in the world for journalists. The regime itself admits
that its police and military apparatuses are saturated with drug traffickers, with
police officers and soldiers enjoying the fruits of their links to organized crime.187
Assassinations and threats against journalists, lawyers, judges, the lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender (lgbt) community, and anyone associated with the
political or social-movement opposition are commonplace. Over the course of the
Lobo administration alone, sixty-seven lawyers and twenty-nine journalists were
murdered. Only in four cases were there convictions.188 Since the coup, as noted
above, state and paramilitary terror, violence, and impunity have run rampant,
while freedom of speech, assembly, and association have been tightly restricted,
in practice if not always on paper.189
In November 2013, the Honduran Special Prosecutor for Human Rights told
a delegation of electoral observers from the American National Lawyers’ Guild
that she faced a backlog of 7,500 cases.190 cofadeh has received reports of 5,000
human rights violations in the country’s northern region alone since 2009. A newly
militarized police force has in recent years routinely targeted poor neighbourhoods
for checkpoints and harassment. In May 2012, this new police force shot dead a
fifteen-year-old boy who failed to stop at a checkpoint while on his motorcycle. Far
from merely random acts of terror, however, most state violence has been expressly
political. Tomás García was killed on July 15, 2013 as a consequence of his involve-
ment in indigenous activism targeting the development of a hydroelectric dam in
Intibuca. During the same summer, Bertha Cáceres, one of the most important
figures in the Honduran indigenous movement and the National Front of Popular
Resistance (fnrp), was charged along with others for blockading roads, also in
opposition to dam development. Most infamously, in the Aguán Valley, almost
one hundred peasants have been killed since the coup by a combination of private
militias and the coercive apparatuses of the state as they have attempted to resist
the usurpation of their land by giant palm-oil corporations.191
Ottawa and the Democratic Coup

While its response to the rapidly escalating tensions in the weeks leading to the
coup was tepid, Canada inserted itself quickly into the volatile mix of Honduran
coup politics.192 Over the next several months, Canada would expend consider-
able energies in trying to ensure a particular “resolution” to the coup. From the
outset, the Harper administration sought to end the isolation of Honduras from the
acceptable elements of the “international community”—the country’s membership
in the oas was revoked because the coup violated its Democratic Charter. At the
same time Canada worked to secure its segregation from the orbit of Venezuelan
influence and that of other Centre-Left governments in Latin America and the
Caribbean with which Zelaya had been building ties and which were the most
vocal critics of the coup. As Canada’s response unfolded to the coup and post-coup
developments, it became clear that a repressive but strongly pro-free market regime,
furbished with a hollow democratic shell, would be the ideal model for Honduras
in the eyes of Canadian interests.
Preventing any return to meaningful democracy in Honduras was at the core
of Canada’s aims in response to the coup, even if the Canadian government could
not publicly support the intervention by the Honduran military, lest it explicitly
betray its fairweather support for robust democracy abroad. But evidently, for the
architects of Canadian foreign policy, if the Honduran coup provided an opening
to reverse the moderate trend to the Left in Honduras and the nascent democra-
tization of a country long ruled by a small consortium of economic and military
elites, it should not be undone by any unnecessary reconstitution of even the
narrow parameters of Honduran constitutional liberalism. Amongst other things,
Canada’s role in undermining attempts to restore democracy in Honduras should
be read as a warning signal to the rest of the isthmus, in which Canadian invest-
ment interests have been undermined by both perfidious government decisions
and intransigent social movements.
So while Canada positioned itself as a helpful mediator, it did so while refusing
to publicly call for Zelaya’s return from exile and criticizing any attempt by him
to return as president on his terms before a resolution had been negotiated with
the oversight of the U.S. and Canada.193 It took this position despite knowing that
Zelaya had, in the words of a report from the embassy, “considerable support
among labour and campesino groups and some of the populist organizations that
have emerged and flourished during his presidency.”194 Following Zelaya’s initial
effort to return, which was met with a mass mobilization of his supporters in the
face of fierce repression, Peter Kent, Minister of State for the Americas, told cbc
radio that the deposed president’s “attempts to re-enter the country…[are]…very
unhelpful to the situation.”195 Kent was silent on the crackdown on freedom of
expression and assembly. Zelaya was—it bears repeating given Canada’s stance—
the constitutionally-elected president of the country who by right of Honduran
law and the oas Democratic Charter should have been able to immediately return
home and resume the presidency. Canadian officials, such as Kent and his advisors
in Foreign Affairs and International Trade (fait), would have understood this well
(the Charter is, after all, much vaunted by Canada when it proves functional to
Canadian interests). Zelaya did manage to return from exile in September 2009
despite Micheletti’s efforts to keep him out of the country, although he ended
up under military seige in the Brazilian embassy. Canada failed to condemn his
treatment by Honduran authorities or to call for his freedom from de facto confine-
ment and his return to the presidency.
The silence regarding Micheletti’s propensity to deploy security forces against
his enemies was quite characteristic of Canada’s general orientation to the post-
coup scenario in Honduras. The Harper government publicly said little about the
wave of repression that hit anti-coup forces immediately following the coup. Not
one press release explicitly identified or criticized the repressive measures by the
coup dictatorship following Zelaya’s ouster. Instead, Kent misleadingly called “on
all parties to show restraint,”196 knowing full well that Honduras was undergoing an
extremely one-sided and violent battle pitting well-armed police, military forces,
and death squads against an unarmed pro-democracy movement.197 This was not
simply bad policy due to lack of information; it was a calculated position—based
on ignoring the documented repression endured by those fighting the coup.198 It
was an official position designed to suggest that both pro-coup and pro-Zelaya
forces were equally reponsible for the conflict and violence, without acknowledg-
ing the extent of violence used by the former, and thus to construct a narrative in
which Zelaya’s return to power under any condition would exacerbate instability.
The prudent postion for Canada, following this logic, was to push Zelaya toward a
negotiated resolution—negotiations, though, designed to keep him from regaining
meaningful political power.
Indeed, as part of this strategy the Harper government, while offering an initial
perfunctory criticism of the coup, also remarkably argued that Zelaya bore respon-
sibility for his forceful removal from the presidency by the military. Kent stated
at an oas meeting, where the regional body was discussing an effort to push the
Micheletti dictatorship to allow Zelaya to return, that the international community
has been too one-sided in its approach to the coup, suggesting that “the coup was
certainly an affront to the region, but there is a context in which these events hap-
pened.…There has to be an appreciation of the events that led up to the coup.”199
Zelaya’s loss of power, in other words, is not the unequivocal problem we are led
to believe in the statements from the officials of various Latin American states.
Conservative mp, Dave Van Kesteren, speaking to the Standing Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Development (scfaid) after Canada had made
public its trade negotiations with Honduras, cuts to the chase and lays the blame
squarely on Zelaya and Venezuela, in the process summarizing well his govern-
ment’s views on political developments in Latin America. “We really need to set
the record straight,” Van Kesteren insists.
The very fact that the coup took place was because the country was drift-
ing toward Hugo Chávez, that type of regime, and the influence that he’s
exerting on a lot of southern [sic].…Let’s make no mistake about it. A real
power struggle is taking place, and it’s what we believe in as a free society;
that’s to have freedom of goods, what we call the unguided [sic] hand, as
opposed to total government control or freedom versus totalitarianism,
prosperity versus poverty.200
While Van Kesteren takes the Conservative Honduran position a step further
than Kent (publicly, at least), the underlying Canadian position here is clear:
whatever one thinks of the coup plotters, they had genuine reasons for wanting
Zelaya’s ouster. Pushing reforms that exceeded the political and economic limits
acceptable to the imperial powers, Zelaya brought the coup upon himself and
his return to the presidency without any checks upon his authority could not be
countenanced—especially, moreover, if Honduras is a domino in the grand plans
of what the Conservatives (and Liberals) repeatedly suggest was Chávez’s anti-free
market authoritarianism.
The Tegucigalpa-San José Accord

Canada’s opposition to the return of genuine democracy in Honduras also fuelled
its promotion of a negotiated solution to the crisis, which quickly became the focal
point of Canadian energies immediately following the coup, and indeed through
to the election on November 29, 2010. Canada lent its unconditional support to
the Tegucigalpa-San José Accord, which was signed by Zelaya under considerable
duress from within the isolation of the Brazilian embassy, perhaps with the hope
that any agreement, however compromised, would weaken the regime’s forces in
the lead-up to the planned elections of November 2009. The opposite turned out
to be true. The Tegucigalpa-San José Accord reinforced the power of the regime,
and provided a veneer of constitutional order under which the Canadian and
American governments could support without qualms the November elections.
The Accord referred the issue of Zelaya’s reinstatement to the presidency back to
Congress rather than establishing it as the non-negotiable core of any further step
forward in a resolution of the conflict. It also imposed a “national unity” concept
through its call for a power-sharing government involving Zelaya’s forces alongside
representatives of the dictatorship. The notion of proceeding with a Constituent
Assembly of any type was ruled out of court. Zelaya remained under siege in the
Brazilian embassy, repression continued against civilian supporters of the resist-
ance, and pro-coup candidates campaigned for the November elections without
any opposition party representing opponents of the coup of June 2009. In this
context, Zelaya withdrew from the accord.
The Tegucigalpa-San José Accord thus posed no threat of a return of genuine
democracy to Honduras, however much Canadians may have presented it as a fair
and balanced effort to do so. Canada’s interests lay elsewhere, summed up by then
Ambassador Neil Reeder, who reported to Ottawa after witnessing the Accord’s
signing that, “as a longstanding aid, trade and investment partner with Honduras, we
were delighted with this outcome.”201 Tellingly, although Zelaya reluctantly decided
to negotiate within its frame of reference, it was unpopular with leading figures of
the resistance because it was an attack on the Zelaya government’s modest reform
agenda, a fact of which Canadian officials on the ground in Honduras were cogni-
zant.202 Ottawa’s promotion of the Accord was in part likely also a response to the
growth of the resistance and its struggle for the return of democracy. One embassy
report, for instance, notes that the “Growth of street demonstrations in various parts
of the country is a dangerous development that argues for every effort being made
to bring two sides together,” and adds, with some alarm, that “Pro-Zelaya rallies
appear to be bringing together campesinos and rural poor, unionists, university
students and members of small parties on the Left of spectrum including socialist
and former communist parties.”203 The Accord, it was hoped, would accomplish
the nominal return of democracy and thus diffuse a potentially explosive social
situation by drawing Zelaya into the negotiations and safely permitting his return
to the presidency, without allotting him any real power.
Although Canada’s Honduran mission is relatively small (the embassy in San
José is actually accredited to Honduras), it was bolstered by the temporary addition
of personnel from other missions. Ambassador Reeder was very active in various
facets of negotiations, while Canadian representatives, including Kent, partici-
pated in two high-level oas missions to Tegucigalpa in August and October 2009
to help advance a resolution when negotiations for the original San José and the
subsequent San José-Tegucigalpa Accords began to stumble. The Canadians were
also in contact with Oscar Arias—the key mediator and Costa Rican president
(who was subsequently linked to a graft scandal involving the Canadian mining
company, Infinito Gold)—throughout the negotiations. The Canadian and U.S.
goal was to have the San José-Tegucigalpa Accord in place, and Zelaya back in
the presidency without meaningful presidential authority, not long before the
November election. Canada could then, along with its American counterparts,
present the restoration of Honduran constitutional democracy to the international
community, making the recognition of the election of Lobo—and the portrayal of
his regime as representing the end of the coup period—an easier public relations
task. Confident it would eventually be accomplished, Canadian officials initially
maintained that the Accord needed to be ratified in order for Canada to provide
assistance to the election.204
The Accord was signed but never ratified, as Micheletti and his supporters in the
end refused even to concede the position of figurehead president to Zelaya, inciting
the latter to denounce the Accord and declare it dead. As it turned out, however,
Canada’s commitment to the Accord’s ratification, and thus the ostensible return
of constitutional democracy, ultimately proved sufficiently flexible not to inter-
fere with the recognition of the newly elected government. Indeed, the Canadian
government offered it unfailing support. While Canada preferred that the Accord
be ratified, as that would make defense of Lobo’s election and Honduras’ readmis-
sion into the international arena easier, it would not let that failure interfere with
its plans for Honduras (principally, the expansion of Canadian capital), and so it
proceeded to take a leading role in defending Honduras’ return to “democracy”
and to argue for its reintegration into the international community. Although Kent
expressed “disappointment” that the Accord was not implemented in time for the
election, and confirmed that Canadian election monitors, like their international
counterparts, would not participate in any observation teams, he was quick to praise
the election. Ignoring the repression and the accusations of fraud surrounding the
elections, Kent eagerly announced with a straight face that
Canada congratulates the Honduran people for the relatively peaceful and
orderly manner in which the country’s elections were conducted. While
Sunday’s elections were not monitored by international organizations…
we are encouraged by reports from civil society organizations that there
was a strong turnout for the elections, that they appear to have been run
freely and fairly, and that there was no major violence.205
Lurking behind this weak defense of the elections was a clear recognition,
according to an internal fait report (with contributions from both Ottawa and
embassy officials), that “On the economic side, Lobo is expected to try to favour
macroeconomic stability and be open to foreign investment. His election is a posi-
tive development for present and future Canadian investment in the country.”206
Lobo was Canada’s guy, soon to prove himself a trusted ally and responsible political
leader—that is, symapthetic to the interests of Canadian capital—thus his election
was democratic and fair.
Canada’s flexible position towards the election of a government in the context of
a coup would also receive ex post facto justification by Reeder, who blamed Zelaya
for the failure of the San José-Tegucigalpa Accord. Defending Canada’s strong rela-
tionship with a government elected outside the frame of a constitutional democracy
to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development
(scfaid) on March 21, 2011, Reeder argued that, “the actions and rhetoric of
President Zelaya, prevented a compromise solution from being reached.”207 Reeder
is presumably referring to Zelaya’s criticism of, and withdrawal from, the Accord
process after initially signing it, after Micheletti refused to allow him to return to
the presidency even as a lame duck president and the Canadians and Americans
continued to push him publicly to support it nevertheless. Yet the reasons Zelaya
had for being reluctant about initially signing the Accord—the weak position in
which it left him and his presidency, the recalcitrance of Micheletti and the other
protagonists of the coup, and the eagerness with which countries like Canada
pushed him to sign it—were quickly borne out afterwards.
Obviously what Reeder and Kent had been pushing Zelaya to support was
never, even at the beginning of negotiations, fair or balanced; and the ease with
which Canada supported the elections after its push for a negotiated settlement
in advance of those elections failed, suggests again that Canada’s real goal was not
a return to genuine constitutional democracy. It is unlikely that this was lost on
Zelaya. It was also clear to anyone following the Honduran political situation that
the Honduran dictatorship had the power to implement the Accord if it wished to
but explicitly chose otherwise. Seeing this, Zelaya decided there was no point in
negotiating as he would have gained nothing at that point. To place responsibility
on Zelaya for the Accord’s failure—an Accord that was an affront to (even liberal)
democracy and which he probably would not have signed had the balance of forces
in Honduras been more in his favour—is simply disingenuous.
What Reeder and the Canadians were really angry about was Zelaya’s display of
independence by refusing to fall in line with Canadian (and American) demands.
Reeder himself visited Zelaya in the Brazilian embassy in October 2009 and
“delivered strong messages to…refrain from calling…for his supporters to go out
into the streets to protest” and “to publicly and explicitly support the November
elections.”208 Zelaya did neither of those things, opting not to lend himself to the
imperialist charade that constitutionality had been restored and give the presiden-
tial election a legitimacy to which it was clearly undeserving. As a result, Zelaya
was a target: a source of ire for the Canadians for his streak of independence, his
reputation was besmirched as a deserving target of a violent coup, while Canadian
efforts to build ties with the new Lobo government proceeded apace.
Zelaya, it is worth noting, was not the sole source of frustration for the Canadians.
Reeder did acknowledge to the scfaid during his testimony in March 2011 that the
“de facto government” (that is, the Micheletti dictatorship) helped to undermine
the compromise itself. This was certainly on the minds of Canadian representatives
in Honduras in the fall of 2009. Communiques from the embassy in Tegucigalpa
suggest that the embassy and Kent were concerned with and frustrated about the
intransigence of Micheletti and his backers in the negotiations and implementation
of the Accord.209 But this should not be taken as a sign of neutrality on Canada’s
part in relation to the efforts to achieve a resolution. Canada’s aim was, first and
foremost, the containment of democracy, and its relationship with Micheletti was
predicated upon that. To the extent Micheletti’s hardline towards Zelaya and the
opposition was seen as containing a popular uprising and blocking Zelaya’s return
to power, he was playing a useful role in Canadian eyes. But that hardline could
be a double-edged sword. From Canada’s perspective, the refusal of Micheletti
and his backers to fully implement the Accord meant that the dictatorship was
quickly outliving any usefulness it may have had in thwarting Zelaya’s return to
the presidency with any real power. For Canada, despite allowing him to return to
the presidency, the Accord was a defeat for Zelaya and his supporters. Micheletti’s
ongoing stubborness as the elections neared would only make it harder for the
likes of Canada to sell the Accord internationally and offer public support for the
election; and, indeed, it would not be until June 2011 that the Lobo government
would gain recognition from the majority of Latin American states and the oas.
Attached to this was an awareness that the political impasse, feeding the frustra-
tions of the pro-Zelaya movement, was damaging the economy and was potentially
threatening to internal stability. That was certainly the view conveyed by Honduran
business leaders who saw Canada as a trustworthy ally in the situation, contributing
suggestions to advance a settlement to Arias that involved Canadian participation
in the resolution to the constitutional crisis.210
Sanitizing State Violence

The failure of the San José-Tegucigalpa Accord, however, raised inescapable ques-
tions about the Lobo government’s legitimacy that would not disappear with
the granting of recognition by the likes of the U.S. or Canada. Lobo was elected
under a dictatorship without even the fig leaf of constitutional restoration via the
Accord, while suggestions of electoral fraud by Lobo’s supporters swirled around
Honduras. Ongoing repression against resistance members fuelled international
concerns further. Most Latin American countries and the oas refused to recognize
the new Honduran government. The Honduran resistance argued that the Lobo
regime represented not the end of the coup but its consolidation under the veneer
of democracy. Canada (and the U.S.) could not ignore the poor reputation of the
Lobo regime; its efforts to build stronger political and economic ties, and score a
victory for the retrenchment of democracy in the region, would require a defense
of the Lobo government’s legitimacy in the face of its detractors if Canada were to
maintain the credibility of its claims of promoting democracy and human rights.
Part of this effort, it seems, was to sanitize what happened on June 28, 2009
and in the months that followed. If doubts, however small, could be raised about
Zelaya’s reputation as an undeserving victim of a coup, then perhaps the Honduran
and international opposition to Lobo’s government would seem less credible.
Canada, we have noted, played down the repression following the coup and argued
that Zelaya bore responsibility for the coup itself and the demise of the San José-
Tegucigalpa Accord.
In his testimony before the scfaid on March 21, 2011, Reeder would add to
the rewriting of the fate of Zelaya by suggesting that the “de facto government…
took over power after President Zelaya left [our emphasis] the country,” as if the
latter left of his own accord and was not forcefully removed at gunpoint by the
military—led by General Vásquez, who would later be named by Lobo to lead
the state telecommunications company, Hondutel.211 “Exile,” which evokes the
political persecution of someone fighting for human rights and social justice, is
replaced with simply leaving the country in what could be, as implied by Reeder
in his testimony, a voluntary act. During the discussion on Honduras’ readmission
to the oas on June 1, 2011, Canada’s representative to the oas, Alan Culham, took
the sanitization a step further, studiously avoiding the descriptor “coup,” referring
instead to the “political crisis” of June 2009.212 “Political crisis” is obviously much
muddier than “military coup,” which expresses more clearly, and accurately, how
and by whom the Zelaya government was violently deposed.
Canadian representatives also continued the heightened engagement with
Honduran leaders that was initiated following the coup with the new Lobo govern-
ment. In its 2009 Honduran Country Strategy Process fait had already identified its
“strategic objective” as “expanding Canada’s engagement with the political leader-
ship through regular visits and dialogue.”213 The Harper government’s new Americas
policy advocated stronger engagment throughout the region, and in Honduras the
lack of clarity around mining was an abiding source of concern (mining policy is
discussed in more detail below). But in the context of Honduras’ post-electoral
international isolation, “expanding…engagement with the political leadership” took
on added significance. On top of regular communications and meetings between
embassy representatives and Honduran political leaders, Kent visited Honduras
and met with Lobo and key cabinet ministers in high profile encounters before
American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the country, travelling twice
(February and August) in the first seven months following Lobo’s inauguration.
These meetings should be read in part as a public display of support for the isolated
and embattled government, a visible communique to international observers that
things were back to normal in Honduras and Canada saw Lobo as a legitimate
democratic leader and interlocutor.
The Harper administration’s defense of the Lobo government was predicated
on the grounds that it was leading a process of national reconciliation. National
reconciliation was a stock talking point for Canadian officials whenever discussing
Honduras. During his trip to Honduras in late February 2009, one month after
the inauguration, Kent was all praise for Lobo and his administration, ignoring the
ongoing repression of anti-coup activists, including the murder of union activist
and resistance member Julio Fúnez Benítez on February 15, two days before his
arrival. Instead, Kent noted his pleasure that, “President Lobo is beginning the
process of national reconciliation, including supporting the formation of a truth

commission.”214 During his testimony to the scfaid on March 21, 2011, Reeder
insisted that, “President Lobo has taken a number of important steps towards re-
establishing democratic order and achieving national reconciliation.” 215
By far the biggest showpiece for claims to national reconciliation is the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission (trc). First raised during the San José-Tegucigalpa
Accord negotiations, the trc was established in April 2010 with an international
panel of commissioners; its stated aim was to investigate the events of June 28, 2009
and move Honduras forward by providing an opportunity for its people to gain
closure on this chapter in their history and reconcile the divisions engendered by
the coup. From its inception, however, the Commission was a farce, taking place as
it did not in the aftermath of a violent conflict in which various actors were seek-
ing peaceful resolution of differences in good faith (as occurred in South Africa
and Guatemala), but while unidirectional military and paramilitary repression of
unarmed civilians continued unabated. Alongside Washington, Canada was one
of the lynchpins in the small clique of Lobo backers working to normalize the
regime’s international relations and lend it credibility by supporting the trc. A
“successful launch” of the Commission, a fait report argues, “will…be seen by
many countries as an important precondition for Honduras’ re-integration into the
regional and international community.”216 Serving a key role in the effort to present
the Lobo government as one amenable to reconciliation, the Commission found
in Canada an enthusiastic advocate. A Memorandum for Action written by the
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Kent notes that contributing to the Truth
Commision is for Canada an opening not to be missed, providing the opportunity
of “continuing its leadership role in Honduras.”217 Kent agreed and fait and cida
together provided upwards of C$400,000 to the Commission as well as a commis-
sion member, former diplomat Michael Kergin, who happened to be employed by
one of Canada’s biggest corporate law firms, Bennett Jones, which also specializes
in, among other things, investment law and mining.218
Sensing a charade for the benefit of the international community, members of the
resistance refused to participate. The leading Honduran human rights organizations
responded with their own truth commission. Predictably, while acknowledging a
coup d’état had occurred, the official Commission, which reported its findings in
early July 2011, blamed Zelaya for breaking the law by disregarding a Supreme Court
ruling to cancel a straw poll referendum that asked Hondurans if they wanted to hold
another referendum during the November 2009 election. As mentioned above, the
second referendum would have enabled Hondurans to decide whether or not to
replace a constitution written during the days of military dictatorship. Rewriting the
constitution remains a very popular idea with many Hondurans. Ten percent of the
document remains classified, safely tucked away in a library in Ottawa for a decade.
As farcical as it was, the Honduran government and its backers used the trc
as a platform to continue pressuring for the normalization of its international
relations on the grounds of national reconciliation. Predictably, Canada praised
the Commission for its efforts towards “strengthening the country’s political
institutions and helping Hondurans gain greater confidence in their democratic
institutions.”219 It also publicly demonstrated a concrete commitment on Canada’s
part to democracy in Honduras as the expansion of Canadian capital—in maquilas
and tourism—entered a new phase in post-coup Honduras, serving as a deflection
of possible criticisms that Canadians may be doing business with and benefiting
from an authoritarian regime.
Canada on Human Rights

The Canadian government’s efforts to support the Lobo government in the face of
the violent reality of contemporary Honduras stems not from neglect or disinterest
towards human rights; rather, it derives from the fact that the violence is accom-
panied by, and in some ways acts as a necessary foundation for, the sociopathic
commitment to foreign capital exhibited by the Honduran regime. Just as in the
case of Canada’s pragmatic commitment to democracy abroad, the Canadian state
will support human rights only insofar as they do not run into contradiction with
the interests of Canadian capital.
While Canadian officials, as we have seen, typically played down or ignored
the severity of the human rights situation in Honduras, it became bad enough a
year into Lobo’s presidency that Reeder felt compelled to offer at least a gesture
of acknowledgement of the realities on the ground when testifying to the scfaid
on March 21, 2011. “Human rights abuses have continued and formal complaints
have actually increased,” he acknowledged, and “we maintain an open channel to
express our concerns to the Government of Honduras, both publicly and privately,
regarding the human rights situation in that country” including undertaking “for-
mal statements of concern during the United Nations universal periodic review of
human rights in Honduras.”220 This acknowledgement is noteworthy coming from
a representative of a department that is very calculating about when and where it
raises human rights concerns, and in the case of Honduras Canada’s public declara-
tions on the matter of human rights abuses against dissidents have been scarce.221
For this reason, Reeder’s statement should be seen as speaking more to the
increasing degeneration of the human rights situation for anti-coup forces, noted
by various Honduran and international human rights organizations, than it does to
any principled commitment on Canada’s part. It is worth noting that the statement
was issued almost immediately following the Harper government’s announcement
that it was conducting bilateral free trade negotiations with Honduras. It was a
proactive, but superficial response to potential criticism of deepening political and

economic engagement with a country that has profound human rights problems. So
Reeder acknowledges there are human rights problems in the country, but avoids
addressing their severity. The violence against anti-coup activists in Tegucigalpa,
and the repression and assassination of peasants in the Bajo Aguán region following
the readmission of Honduras into the oas, rated no public response from Canada.
Nor does he draw attention to any of the obvious links that the Honduran victims
of repression and human rights groups have made between the perpetrators and
the government, particularly its security apparatuses.
During his state visit to Honduras in August 2011, in which he met with
Lobo and signed the Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement, Harper also
acknowledged that there may be some human rights problems in the country, but
confidently concluded, “I am sure they are not committed by the government.”222
While we have discussed the involvement of the state’s security apparatus in the
repression, human rights and anti-coup activists in Honduras argue the state is
also implicated via the climate of impunity to which it has contributed, as rarely is
anyone even charged in relation to assassinations, torture, or illegal detainment,
much less convicted. In what seems an implicit acknowledgement of impunity for
human rights abuses in Honduras, cida has funded a project whereby the Justice
Education Society of Britsh Columbia was to provide expertise to the Attorney
General’s office to improve criminal investigation, though—unremarked by
Canadian officials—the program has had no demonstrable effect in matters of
political persecution.223
If Canadian officials do not allow for a connection between human rights
problems and the Honduran state, they are even more loathe to acknowledge the
possible role of Canadian companies, with whom they have worked closely on
the Honduras file. In his scfaid testimony, Reeder downplays any connection
between human rights violations and Canadian investment interests in mining
(an issue we discuss in more detail below). In response to the earlier testimony
of Honduran activist Pedro Landa regarding Canadian mining before the scfaid,
Reeder asserted that “I visited the Canadian mines, and I respect that industry.
The mines provide good jobs and good opportunities to Hondurans.”224 It is a
deliberately deceptive position the Canadian state is taking: yes, the human rights
situation is not perfect, but it has nothing to do with the Honduran state, the Lobo
government or Canadian investment.
But, according to Canadian foreign policy mantra, this political and economic
engagment in Honduras is not merely permissible for these reasons, it is actually
essential to improving human rights in the country. Here we have the Canadian
state’s trickle down theory of human rights, deployed in other contexts, such as
Colombia, to defend Canadian capital’s pursuit of profit and the state’s political
alliances with reactionary regimes. Being political allies with the government,
and opening up economic opportunities for Canadian business, is not crass and
irresponsible opportunism; it is, rather, altruistic policy. The inevitable increase in
living standards that attends Canadian investment will lead to improvements in the
human rights situation, as, so the argument goes, a population with a higher living
standard becomes more educated and will push more effectively for better human
rights. Thus Reeder could argue to the scfaid, expressing honestly the position
of fait, that “continued isolation only hurts the most vulnerable people in the
country,” and Canada should therefore “work with the government to improve the
human rights situation” rather than “deny the people of Honduras the opportunity
to benefit from a free trade agreement with us.”225 Implicit in Reeder’s formula-
tion, it follows, is that the alternative position—prohibiting Canadian business
to do as it pleases in the country and isolating the Lobo regime—will only make
human rights worse. With a laissez-faire twist, Canada, as it has done in Colombia
and elsewhere, turns on its head the notion that lending political support to, and
encouraging capitalist expansion in, countries suffering from political persecution
reinforces that persecution. In the process, Canada ignores the rich history of strug-
gle, including against corporations from the Global North, by workers, peasants,
women, and indigenous peoples that has been necessary to drive human rights
forward in Latin America and around the world.
The absurdity of Reeder’s argument and Canada’s position is clear to many
observers of Honduran politics. Honduras has been a special focus of Canadian
foreign policy in the region since at least the coup, with Canadian maquila and
tourist expansions announced before even the free trade agreement (fta) was
concluded. Any honest human rights assessment must acknowledge that the situ-
ation for social movement activists and opposition forces between the coup and
Reeder’s testimony did not improve but deteriorated considerably, and that the
Lobo government did little to reverse this trend. Assassinations also continued after
Reeder’s pronouncement and after the fta was announced, but Canada has said
nothing publicly about them. It was likewise silent when the Honduran Supreme
Court, criticized by human rights organizations for its support of the coup, pre-
dictably cleared six army generals accused of supporting the coup.226 The idea that
Canadian investment and strong political cooperation will improve the situation is
a fairy tale that even Reeder and the Harper government could not possibly believe
in the case of Honduras, any more than they did in Colombia.
Ethnographies of Opposition
An unanticipated consequence of the coup plotters’ casual breach of liberal insti-
tutions has been the emergence of a powerful popular opposition, characterized
by ideologies and practices much closer to the best revolutionary Left traditions
elsewhere in Latin America than had been the case in most of the modern politi-
cal history of the Honduran Left.227 The resistance erupted almost immediately.
While Micheletti celebrated his triumphal seizure of the presidency, elsewhere in
the capital, and throughout the country, an eruption of the popular classes—led
by teachers, urban workers, students, indigenous communities, peasants, the urban
poor, environmentalists, women’s organizations, and others—was taking shape
and braving waves of repression. Makeshift barricades were erected in Tegucigalpa,
highways were blockaded, tires burned in the streets, clashes between protesters,
police, and the military erupted, and graffiti labelling Micheletti a fascist, and, bet-
ter, “Pinocheletti,” sprung up on walls throughout the cities.228 “They want to kick
Zelaya out at whatever cost,” the peasant leader Rafael Alegría exclaimed, “but the
only thing they have achieved is to present our country as savage, where the rules
of democracy are not respected. Or do you know of another case in the world in
which a poll has originated a coup d’état?”229 Between June 28 and November 29,
when the national elections consolidating the coup were held, there were roughly
150 days of continuous resistance activities, with charged pinnacles on July 5—
when Zelaya unsuccessfully attempted a return from exile by plane, and September
15—when the Frente Nacional de la Resistencia Popular (National Front of Popular
Resistance, fnrp) organized a parallel march and demonstration of political defi-
ance against the official state celebrations of National Independence Day.230
The institutional core of the fnrp consisted of different sectors of the labour
movement—particularly teachers, banana workers, public sector workers, and
bottling-plant workers. However, it also incorporated an array of social movement
actors, including peasants, women, alternative media groups, indigenous and
Afro-indigenous sectors, human rights organizations, and lgbt activists, among
others.231 Delegates from these various social movement and trade unions bases
were sent to participate in the central coordinating body of the front as representa-
tives of their sectors. More than simply calling for the return of Zelaya, the fnrp
almost immediately began calling for a Constituent Assembly to fundamentally
refound the country on the basis of social justice and equality. In ideology, and
through its reliance on direct, mass actions that built the capacities of popular
sectors to organize themselves under dire conditions, the fnrp represented an
increasingly radical social Left in the Honduran landscape.
We witnessed the spirit of the resistance most vividly in the streets of
Tegucigalpa on Wednesday, January 27, 2010, the date of Lobo’s inauguration.
It was clear that with the transfer of power from Micheletti to Lobo, business as
usual would not go uncontested. Despite the black-suited sharp shooters visible
on the tower edges of buildings running parallel to the resistance march, and the
hundreds of military and police troops weighed down with automatic weapons, it
was hardly obvious that the protesting masses had more to fear than Pepe Lobo.
Indeed, as one popular resistance t-shirt proclaimed, “Nos tienen miedo porque
no tenemos miedo” [“They fear us because we’re not afraid.”]
In a meeting in Tegucigalpa on the eve of Lobo’s inauguration, Radio Globo
journalist Felix Molina suggested to us that Honduras was entering a fourth moment
of the coup. The first phase involved its preparation and execution. The second saw
the gathering of domestic elite and imperial forces around the San José Accord.
The third carried out that accord. A week before Lobo’s inauguration, the forth
moment began to congeal. Posters plastered the walls of the capital celebrating the
commencement of the new government of “national unity.” “This fourth moment,”
Molina argued, was “about constructing normality, ostensibly with peace and rec-
onciliation. It’s about selling a supposed project of national integration. Essentially,
the objective is to say that nothing happened here, that coups can be a democratic
method to correct a democracy gone awry. The point of this fourth moment is to
legalize the coup.” As quickly as the state’s posters of calm and consensus marked
the avenues of Tegucigalpa, graffiti artists of the resistance offered their response
— “Fuera golpistas asesinos!” [“Out with the Coupist Assassins!”] The corporate
media cast Lobo as the “elected president,” whereas the fnrp repudiated him as
the “son of a coup.” The corporate media celebrated a national unity government of
integration, whereas the fnrp refused dialogue with Lobo’s regime, and denounced
it as the latest incarnation of the original coup of June 2009.
This war of words found its material expression in the protesting cascades of
hundreds of thousands marching from downtown toward the airport on January
27. The march paid homage to Zelaya—as he finally escaped four months of
sequestration in the Brazilian embassy for exile in the Dominican Republic—and,
at the same time, announced that the struggle against the coup regime would
continue. We approached the first row of military police and the crowd rang out,
urging folks to study and learn so they’ll never have to be on the other side of the
barricades.
Estudiar, aprender, para chepo nunca ser! [Study, learn, so you’ll never
be a cop!]
A group of energetic ten-year-olds danced amidst the marchers, chanting concord-

antly for the death of the golpista regime. Peasants, trade unionists, feminists, and
different Left groupings walked arm-in-arm and cheered ecstatically as cars moved
in the other direction honking in solidarity. Teenagers leaned out of the windows
of a passing bus, their fists raised in the air.
El pueblo ¿dónde está? ¡El pueblo está en las calles exigiendo libertad!
[Where are the People? The people are in the streets demanding liberty!]
¿Estás cansado? ¡No! ¿Tienes miedo? ¡No! ¿Entonces? ¡Adelante,
Adelante, que la lucha es constante! [Are you tired? No! Are you afraid?
No! So? Forward! Forward! In Constant Struggle!]
“The resistance has two principal pillars,” Rafael Alegría, a principal peasant
leader in the resistance, informed us during the march. “A social pillar for the
revindication of the people’s rights, in which the resistance accompanies people
in their daily struggle, for agrarian reform, for just salaries, and opposition to the
privatization of social services. This is the pillar of social mobilization.” The other
pillar, Alegría emphasized, “is the political arm—to convert ourselves into a mili-
tant political force which will work towards taking political power in our country.”
We asked Alegría about the Constituent Assembly, as the crowd around us
thundered:
¿Qué somos? ¡Resistencia popular! ¿Qué queremos? ¡Constituyente!

[What are we? Popular Resistance! What do we want? Constituent
Assembly!]
“The power of the people,” he told us,
is going to result in massive transformations in this country. We are

demanding a Constituent Assembly that is going to transform this country
into a participatory democracy. It will be a new Honduras—a country
with social justice, with equality, with a new model of development in
which everyone is included, and, as the Bolivians say, so that our entire
country can live well.
Alegría contrasts this vision with the “current situation, in which there is a privileged
oligarchy, which owns and controls everything, while on the other hand there is
an immense mass of impoverished people. This can’t continue.”
Two days earlier, in a gathering of the resistance outside the Brazilian embassy
to celebrate National Women’s Day in Honduras, we met with Brenda Villacorta,
of Feminists in Resistance, who expressed many of the same sentiments. “Lobo’s
possession of office doesn’t represent anything. It is the continuation, the per-
petuation of the coup d’état that took place in this country on June 28, 2009. The
protagonists have changed but the scenario is exactly the same.” The marchers of
January 27 agreed:
!No existe Presidente! !Si a la constituyente! [There is no President! We

demand a Constituent Assembly!]
“The resistance will take to the streets again and again,” Villacorta said. “This
is the only way we can apply pressure, or at least the most effective way of doing
so.…The process to create the Constituent Assembly will be a long one,” she
estimated, but worth the struggle. “The old constitution was established under a
military dictatorship, and it does not benefit the Honduran people, the authentic
Honduran people. Instead, it works in the interests of the business class and the
big power groups.”
For the Honduran Resistance, Lobo did not signify an end of the coup but
rather its consolidation under the veneer of democratic legitimacy. One day into
his Presidency, Lobo had already declared a financial emergency, and called for
new fiscal austerity measures. Together with the amnesty law for protagonists of
the coup and the opening up of mining concessions, all signals pointed to the
consolidation of a hard-Right shift in domestic and economic policy, designed to
roll back the modest reforms introduced by Zelaya. The coming socio-economic
assault on the popular classes, in the midst of a deep recession exacerbated by the
coup plotters, alongside continuing repression and political intimidation, presented
formidable challenges to the Resistance looking forward. If January 27 revealed
anything, however, it was that there were two sides to Honduras. The pole of Pepe
Lobo and the imperialists, on the one hand, and a multi-headed hydra of exploited
and oppressed, on the other. If the masses had not yet gathered sufficient power to
toss Lobo into the dustbin of history, they had demonstrated that they would not
easily be cowered by a tiny minority, even one armed to the teeth.
Despite the heroic opposition of the resistance, however, the balance of forces
domestically and internationally continued to favour the coup’s consolidation. In
order to better understand the underlying motivations of Canadian capitalists,
diplomats, and politicians within this complex scenario in post-coup Honduras,
it makes sense in the following sections to turn to the material bases of their inter-
ests—mining, maquilas, and tourism—as well as to the most important recent
economic developments in which Canadian actors have been central, such as the
recently solidified bilateral free trade agreement between Canada and Honduras.
Canadian Capital in Honduras

As noted, Zelaya’s term in office introduced a modest break with the economics of
neoliberal orthodoxy, but post-coup Honduras has witnessed its vengeful return,
first under Micheletti, and then under Lobo. There has been perhaps no clearer
indication of Lobo’s commitment in this regard than the investment conference
held in Trujillo in May 2011, Honduras is Open for Business, the motto of which
was “a moment of change, a horizon of opportunities.” The conference, attended
by a number of Canadian investors, was accompanied by the publication of
a government document, Honduras: A Country Open for Investment.232 As the
government report explains, legislation is rapidly being introduced to facilitate
the implementation of the various facets of two overarching development plans,
Country Vision (2010–2038), and The Nation Plan (2010–2022). The preeminent
objective of both is to attract foreign direct investment into six areas in which the
Lobo government believes Honduras enjoys a competitive advantage: infrastruc-
ture, renewable energy, tourism, agribusiness, forestry and textiles, and electronic
and business services.233
These were encouraging signs for Canadian and foreign capital, inspiring
Canadian ambassador Cameron Mackay to express, in a gushing op-ed piece in
a major Honduran daily, how “pleased” Canada is “to see Honduras under the
leadership of president Porfirio Lobo.”234 Reproducing the new economic model
in the face of resistance has been enabled by the impunity with which state and
military forces have been able to carry out systematic abuses of the human rights
of the Honduran population. The Canadian state’s response to these violations has
paralleled its position on Honduran democracy more generally of late.
Canadian capital has considerable influence in a number of Honduran indus-
tries, and this is likely to grow further over the next several years. According to
Ambassador Cameron Mackay, by the summer of 2011 Canada had over C$750
million in investment in Honduras—a considerable jump from Statistics Canada’s
pre-coup 2007 (the last year for which data is available before the coup) figure
of C$105 million.235 The three most prominent economic sectors for Canadian
investment have been mining, maquilas (regulation-light industrial manufacturing
zones with low-wage, non-union, and predominantly female labour), and tourism.
The growing influence of Canadian capital has not been embraced by Honduran
workers, nor communities affected by the social and environmental costs of min-
ing and tourism. Prior to the coup these groups were already organizing against
Canadian companies, and the political context of post-coup Honduras has made the
human rights and environmental situations more challenging for some Hondurans.
The experiences of Honduran maquila workers and mining- and tourism-affected
communities offer a clear, and disturbing, illustration of the implications of the
coup and the expansion of Canadian capital in the country.
Mining
Conflict surrounding mining has been a central feature of Honduran political
life since the late 1990s when a new mining law was implemented and Canadian
companies began investing. As a result, while Goldcorp, despite strong resistance
to its operations, has managed to develop its San Martin open-pit mine, stability
has been elusive for the industry.
Pedro Landa is a leading environmental activist in Honduras, with particular
expertise in the mining industry. We talked with him for over an hour in his
Tegucigalpa office in late June 2011. According to Landa, Canadian mining com-
panies, already the largest investors in that industry, have signaled they could spend
between C$700 million to C$1 billion over the next several years with a new law
in place that provides predictability and security for their investments.236 Landa
pointed out that the majority of the more than 160 licensed exploration conces-
sions that are awaiting approval to proceed are owned by Canadian companies.
Even before Zelaya’s election, however, mining exploration began to stall in
Honduras. Mining companies and the existing mining law were targets of fierce
criticism from social movements and communities adversely affected by mining
activities. An executive with the Canadian corporation Maverick, for instance,
complained of harassment from local communities opposed to its activities, refer-
ring to protesters as an “eco-cancer,” while Canadian gold mining giant, Goldcorp,
was the target of strong community opposition as well (discussed further below).237
The mining law in place in Honduras at the time of Zelaya’s election had been
introduced in the aftermath of the devastation of Hurricane Mitch in 1998, at
the behest of the imf and the Inter-American Development Bank, as part of their
efforts to compel Latin American countries to open their natural resource industries
to foreign investment. The natural disaster and its deleterious economic impact
were used to push through a law with little public debate, and it was widely seen
as favourable to mining companies rather than the communities in and around
which the mines were located.238 In 2007, in the context of growing public concern
about the ecological consequences of large-scale mining (all of which was foreign),
the Honduran Supreme Court determined that thirteen articles of the law were
unconstitutional, among them, the termination of environmental impact studies
prior to the granting of concessions. The Zelaya administration, which initially gave
space to the industry to develop reforms to the law, responded to the industry’s
failure to do so and to persistent public concerns about mining with a unilateral
proposal for a new law in April 2009. The proposed law would have prohibited
open-pit projects and the use of heavy metals like cyanide for refining—a move
that no doubt failed to earn the president any fans in the industry.
The Zelaya administration also rejected Canadian mining giant Goldcorp’s
closure plan for its San Martin mine, which had been criticized by community
activists for failing to take adequate steps to clean toxins from the local water sys-
tem.239 The stasis had grown and the industry was in limbo. Zelaya’s proposal for
a new mining law, however, did not see the light of day. The coup and the repres-
sion that followed changed the balance of forces in Honduras between capital on
the one hand, and community activists, on the other. This did not translate into
a new law immediately following the coup, however. Pedro Landa argues that the
industry and its political supporters moved cautiously on this front, knowing that
large-scale mining was still a sensitive issue in the country (including with some
members of congress), and the industry had been publicly identified in Honduras
and internationally as a strong supporter of the coup.240
Canada nonetheless had its sights on a new mining law favourable to Canadian
companies. As early as a year before the coup, in fact, Minister of Interational
Cooperation, Bev Oda, met with represenatives of a Canadian company active in
Honduras, Yamana Gold, and discussed their frustration with the mining regime
and the growing anti-mining sentiment.241 The Canadian government had no
faith in Zelaya to address Canadian capital’s concerns by this time. The new Lobo
government, however, with its favourable orientation toward foreign investment
and friendly relations with the Harper government was viewed as a useful inter-
locutor. Landa also points to the influence of the mining industry on the political
process in Honduras after the coup. He notes that industry representatives from
the Asociación Nacional de Minería Metálica en Honduras (National Association
of Metal Mining, anaminh) acted as advisors to the Micheletti government and
subsequently served on a mining commission under Lobo. The commission was
instrumental in the development of the new law that would be introduced into
Congress in 2012.242 The general political environment in post-coup Honduras,
then, provided a reasonable basis for confidence within the industry and the
Canadian government regarding the possibilities for a rebirth of mining in the
country.
This sentiment is captured in a report on bilateral commercial relations with
Honduras produced in the Latin American and Caribbean Commercial Relations
section of fait: “Given the new [Honduran] government’s openness to foreign
investment and desire to establish clearer regulations for the extractive sector, we
expect to see renewed interest in new investments in Honduras among the Canadian
mining community.” 243 In fact, according to Landa, there were 168 exploration
licenses that had been approved in Honduras before a new law was in place, the
majority of them Canadian.244
After Lobo’s June election, then, Canadian officials swung into action. The first
visit to Honduras following Lobo’s inauguration by Canada’s Minister of State for
the Americas, Peter Kent, included meetings with Canadian mining representa-
tives and Honduran political leaders. The embassy promised the mining industry
to work on its behalf and arrange meetings with key Honduran political leaders,
exploiting its efforts to undermine Zelaya and support the isolated and illegitimate
Lobo government. In late May 2010, for instance, ambassador Reeder and cida
head Daniel Arsenault accompanied Canadian mining executives from Breakwater
Resources and Aura Minerales in a series of “high level calls” on Honduran politi-
cal leaders, including the Conservative President of Congress, Juan Hernández,
President Lobo, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mario Canahuati, and the Minister
of Natural Resources and the Environment, Rigoberto Cuéllar Cruz, “helping
them pursue their commerical interests in Honduras.” Arsenault happily reports
that Hernández “was well disposed to Canada and to our investment posture in
the country,” while Lobo and his cabinet ministers “wanted to encourage more
foreign investment to Honduras as a means to create jobs.” There with a purpose,
and seeing an obvious opening from Honduran leaders, the Canadians did not mix
their message. Arsenault reports that “we were facilitating private sector discussions
with the new government in order to promote a comprehensive mining code to
give clarity and certainty to our investments.”245
“The Canadian investor message,” Reeder remarks in a communiqué regarding
the meeting, “was that we [sic] were prepared to consider new mining invest-
ments in the country. President Lobo and his Minister of Mines have publicly
pointed to this visit as an important vote of support.”246 And that support will not
go unrewarded. “There appears to be,” Arsenault observes, “a political opening in
Honduras to advance discussions on a comprehensive mining code.” Unmentioned
in the Situational Report from which these quotations are drawn, but obvious to any
Canadian diplomat or mining leader working the Honduran political machine, is
that the “political opening” is a direct result of a military coup and bloody repres-
sion. The Situational Report notes as well that Reeder asserted that the Canadian
government expects Canadian companies to “abide by good csr practices,” a rote
mention in such discussions—raised with a nod and a wink—with little implica-
tion for Canadians beyond the pr exercise it represents, its meek utility even more
obvious when measured against the actual practices of Canadian companies.
Confidence buoyed by the meeting, the Canadian mining executives graciously
offered to assist with the writing of a new mining law that is “comparable to what
is working in other jurisdictions.” When the Honduran interlocutors welcomed
the offer of support from the Canadian executives, the latter subsequently went
about identifying, through consultations with representatives from the World
Bank and imf, a mining policy “resource” (i.e., an advisor)—with whom they met
several times first to “ensure our ‘ideologies’ aligned”—to propose to the Honduran
Congress. When later approached for financial support for the writing of a new
mining law by Breakwater Resources, the embassy and cida in Honduras replied
that given cida’s existing commitments it would not be possible, but that they
should approach instead the csr Centre for Excellence in the Canadian Institute
of Mining in Montreal (an organization of professionals working in the mining
industry that received funding from fait), which if needed will give the the process
of influencing a new law a veneer of csr.247
One option, cida and the embassy suggest, is for Canadian mining representa-
tives “to contribute to the costs of the consultant/development of the bill, but
that the interlocutor or lead on engagement with the Honduran Congress be the
cim…This would remove your company from a direct role and present the cim as
the interlocutor.” Another angle they propose is to use “the fide, the Honduran
agency promoting fdi in Honduras,” as “the lead interlocutor with the Congress to
facilitate a consultant’s services to help in drafting the law, but with funding for this
work provided to the fide from the mining sector unless the fide has their own
resources.”248 The Canadian strategy, then, was to have the Canadian mining indus-
try finance the writing of a new mining law behind the scenes to its own benefit.
Embassy support for a new mining law did not end there. An email written in
March 2012 by a staffer with the Canadian mission serving Honduras suggests,
without going into the details, embassy support going back to the early days of
the Lobo regime. “Given that Honduras has not had a modern [redacted] mining
law for a long period of time, the embassy for the past two years have [sic] been
working actively with Honduran government to promote a modern, competitive
and transparent mining law.”249 The Honduran media also reported in early 2012
after an initial draft of the law was completed that Honduras had an agreement with
Canada to use Canadian funds in order to contract a consultant to make sure “that
the experiences of Canada are also reflected in the law.”250
A congressional commission to study a new mining law was established in
the autumn of 2010.251 The Commission initially presented itself as seeking the
perspective of different Honduran actors, including environmentalists. Some
environmental groups initially agreed to participate in the Commission, but even-
tually withdrew after deciding their concerns about large-scale mining were being
ignored. The commission finished its work and the final version of the proposed
law was put forward to Congress in early 2012 without input from actors outside
of Congress and the industry.252 According to a number of community, social
movement, and human rights organizations that issued a joint communiqué when
it was made public in January, the law fails to address the key concerns that critics
of the industry have been making in Honduras: it continues to permit controver-
sial open-pit mining; it does not protect access to safe water in communities near
developments; it contains loopholes that will enable foreign companies to limit their
tax payments; it lowers requirements for the granting of concessions; it restricts
public access to information on mining plans and activities; it fails to ensure binding
community consultation, only requiring consultation for production licenses and
not exploration; and it commits to processing the exploration projects that were
halted by Zelaya’s moratorium.253 The law, in other words, establishes an extremely
favourable environment for Canadian and other international capital, and in doing
so will inevitably lead to an intensification of social conflict.
Goldcorp’s recent history offers a useful lesson in the impact of large-scale

industrial mining in the Honduran countryside. Operated by Goldcorp subsidi-
ary, Entremares, the San Martin mine in Honduras’ Siria Vally was operational
from 2000–2007. It faced opposition from the start. Activists with the Siria Valley
Defense Committee blame Goldcorp for polluting the local water system and
poisoning inhabitants of the Valley. They point to deforestation, the diversion of
natural waterways, the construction of roads, the starving of small farmers of scarce
water resources (it used betweeen 757 and 1211 litres of water per minute to extract
gold) and a concomitant end to food security for the peasantry in the region.254
Goldcorp and the Honduran government deny that San Martin has harmed the
environment or the people of the Valley, but scientific study of the water used for
human consumption in two of the Valley communities found levels of arsenic, lead,
and hexavalent chromium well above the World Health Organization’s acceptable
levels.255 That same study also found high levels of lead and arsenic in the blood of
ten people tested in the communities.
Under pressure from the Defense Committee’s international campaign against
Goldcorp, the Honduran Ministry of the Environment responded by conducting
its own study of blood and urine samples from sixty-two children and adults in
2007, while a former Honduran medical examiner and a former Special Attorney
for the Environment were hired by Goldcorp to observe the process. However,
both the Ministry of the Environment and Goldcorp sat on the results for almost
four years. In April 2011, results for the tests of arsenic, mercury, and lead levels
in the blood, but not urine, were released. The Ministry of the Environment’s
own study found that forty-six of sixty-two people tested had “dangerously high
levels of heavy metals poisoning in their blood that would have required immedi-
ate and sustained medical treatment back in 2007.”256 Ongoing clinical studies by
Tegucigalpa-based Dr. Juan Almendarez “have revealed serious skin and hair loss
problems, respiratory track, nervous system and eye problems—all of which can
be attributed to contamination by heavy metals that are dangerous to the health
of the present and future generations.”257
Community activists report that representatives of the Honduran government
were visiting the homes of the sixty-two individuals tested, attempting to get them
to sign confidentiality and waiver agreements while offering to take them to a
hospital in Tegucigalpa.258 Clinical examination of test subjects revealed “hyper-
pigmentation, coordination problems, and pins and needles,” which Almendarez
argues are “indicative of chronic arsenic and lead poisoning.”
The Honduran state, however, continued to play down the extent of contamina-
tion and refused to seek meaningful redress, while Goldcorp engaged in denial—as
peoples’ health deteriorated. In fact, it appears that Goldcorp and the Honduran
state may well have known and covered up since at least 2007 information about
health problems created by the mining company’s cyanide-leaching open-pit mine:

the San Martin mining concession contained a clause requiring cancellation if there
is harm done to water and air quality and the national ecological system. But the
Siria Valley Defense Committee increased its pressure on the government to take
action—pointing to dead cattle and increasing incidences of hair loss, skin rashes,
and miscarriages in women besetting their community—and brought international
attention to the struggle against Goldcorp.
The poisoning is unlikely to stop with the closure of the mine, a process initi-
ated in 2008. According to Paul Younger, a Professor of Geochemical Engineering
at Newcastle University in England who studied the closure plan in 2008, acid
drainage from San Martin was causing heavy metal contamination that will last for
more than a century. Another later study by Younger’s Newcastle colleagues Adam
Jarvis and Jaime Amezaga, “found evidence of ‘severe’ contamination in the form
of highly acidic and metal-rich water from the mine site flowing into a stream used
by villagers for agriculture and domestic purposes.”259 All of this together demon-
strates that Canadian promotion of csr amounts to little more than propaganda.
The Canadian government has not publicly criticized Goldcorp on this issue; it
has instead remained silent. Nor has the Canadian government found it necessary
to assist those in the community suffering from the effects of exposure to lead,
arsenic, and contamination of their water systems.
In a further illustration of the social conflict generated by Goldcorp’s activities,
on July 5, 2011 an arrest warrant was executed on six Siria Valley activists who had
participated in blockades against loggers seeking to enter land in the muncipality of
El Porvenir that activists assert has been communally-owned since the early 1800s.
The activists are alleged to have made death threats against one of the property
owners. The arrests are connected to ongoing opposition to Goldcorp, which the
activists argue is working with a wealthy family that has fraudulently obtained title
to their land. The family, it is alleged, intends on clear cutting forest on the land,
which it has received permission to do from the Honduran state. Clear cutting the
land will then make it easier for Goldcorp to obtain environmental permits neces-
sary to exploit gold resources on the land. The activists were subsequently granted
conditional release, but will still face trial on the charges.260
What is more, Goldcorp is not the only Canadian mine facing criticism for
its nefarious environmental and social practices. Another case is that of Aura
Minerals’ San Andres Mine in the municipality of La Unión. Aura is the third
Canadian company to own the mine since the mid-1990s, and receives financing
from the Canada Pension Plan. Members of the local community allege that the
mine has been involved in contamination stemming from two cyanide spills, which
forced relocations of community members. The community also alleges that the
company failed entirely to deliver compensation it has promised to cover the costs
incurred by residents. People relocated from the community of San Andres by one
of Aura’s predecessors, Greenstone Resources, claim they still have not received
land settlements and financial compensation promised by Greenstone, and Aura
continues to ignore their claims. Meanwhile, Aura is hoping to expand its opera-
tions onto land in the original San Andres that includes a cemetery.261 Aura has a
poor record elsewhere in the country as well. In November 2011, three journalists
from Multivisión in Santa Rosa de Copán in western Honduras reported receiving
verbal threats from an Aura Minerals representative after raising questions about
the company’s practices. The threats were in fact from another journalist who has
worked in public relations for the company.262
Maquilas
Montreal-based maquila company Gildan Activewear, the world’s largest sock
manufacturer and one its largest t-shirt producers, is now Honduras’ biggest pri-
vate sector employer. Early in February 2011, after bilateral trade talks were well
underway, it announced it was closing its last North American factory in Alabama
and that it would be investing more than US$100 million in a new sock factory in
Honduras. Gildan currently has six production facilities in the country (just under
half of its global total). By 2011, the company went so far as to establish a corporate
headquarters in Honduras.263 Although an fta was not yet completed when it made
its announcement, Gildan was likely confident it was coming soon, having had seven
meetings between June 2010 and mid-January 2011 with Canadian politicians and
fait representatives, which were officially registered with Ottawa’s Office of the
Commissioner of Lobbying and labelled under “International Trade.” (The official
registry, it must be noted, does not record informal meetings and electronic commu-
nications between companies and state representatives, which are not infrequent).
In mid-June 2011, we sat down in San Pedro Sula with María Luisa Regalado,
a leading member of the Colectivo de Mujeres de Honduras (Women’s Collective
of Honduras, codemuh). She has been working with the overwhelmingly female
workforce of Gildan since 2006, gathering testimonies on working conditions and
grievances, and helping to coordinate legal support for the workers. At the time
of the interview, Regalado reported that there were over five hundred live files of
workers with medical problems from over-exertion on the job. They suffered sys-
tematically from skeletal problems related to prolonged distortion of their bodies
as they hunched over machines on the job. They also suffered from multiple injuries
such as hernias, eye problems, and tendon and muscular damage. codemuh has
conducted advocacy work with women injured at Gildan factories who could no
longer work. According to Regalado, Gildan resisted finding new work for them or
offering them any kind of support. After considerable public pressure, organized by
codemuh and other organizations, as well as negotiations facilitated through the
Ministry of Labour, Gildan said it would relocate the workers and undertake an
ergonomics study, but it did not follow through on its commitments. In a country
with no social safety net or public health insurance, the range of problems faced
by injured former Gildan workers who now find themselves unemployed are dif-
ficult to quantify.
It is commonplace for women workers to be racked with simultaneous injuries
in their backs and both arms. It is little wonder that such injuries are occurring
when, according to Regalado, there are frequent testimonies of work days lasting
in excess of 11.5 hours, and workers having to work for six, and even seven days
per week in cases where their shifts are altered from day to night, or vice versa.
“Gildan is one of the most exploitative companies in this country,” Regalado told
us, “and one of the worst violators of the human rights of its workers, and we can
say this with confidence because we have documented the cases; we also have the
testimonies of the workers themselves.” What is more, “the practices of Gildan and
other maquilas have become worse since the coup d’état of June 2009.”264 Gildan’s
position vis-à-vis its workers has strengthened in a variety of ways since the coup.
While cognizant of the international attention it has received from sweatshop
monitoring agencies due in part to the work of groups like codemuh, according
to Regalado it has become more emboldened.
Speaking on Gildan before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and
International Development in Canada, Regalado reinforced what we learned from
our interview. “The company is violating the labour code,” she noted. Workers are
supposed to be facing a legal maximum of 44 hours per week, but they are “actually
working up to 69 hours a week” without air conditioning, and with “15 minutes to
eat, barely.” The Conservative member of the committee, Peter Goldring, dismiss-
ing her years of experience working firsthand with women in the maquila sector,
described Regalado’s comments as “hyperbole,” with no evidence to back up his
denunciation.265
codemuh wrote an open letter to Stephen Harper during his visit to Honduras
in August 2011, part of which was devoted to a tour of one of Gildan plants. “Gildan
Activewear is violating the Constitution of the Honduran Republic and other
labour laws,” the letter notes, “by implementing long work days and a system of
unachievable production quotas.” It continues by noting the company’s systematic
“anti-organizing and anti-union policies,” and highlights the fact that its
production goals or quotas are the highest in the industry in Honduras.

To earn [US]$89.99 per week, workers have to produce 550 dozen pieces
every day, and are exposed to awkward postures, executing up to 40,000
repetitive movements in their joints, tendons, and muscles per day. These
conditions produce Occupational Musculoskeletal Injuries.
The letter dismisses the public relations idea that Gildan is somehow contribut-
ing to human development in Honduras. “Gildan does not pay taxes because they
are exempt,” the letter suggests, “so it is absurd when we see that a company with
such a high level of exploitation of the work force has been applauded as one of the
50 best Canadian corporations and one of the 20 most responsible companies.” In
conclusion: “Jobs yes, but with dignity.”266
Tourism
One of the largest Canadian projects under development in the country is owned
by tourist magnate, Randy Jorgenson (founder of Canadian chain Adult Video).
The project, which will include a new US$15 million cruise-ship dock to bring
tourists from around the world, is being built through his company Life Vision
near the north coast city of Trujillo on Garífuna land, with homes being built to be
sold off to prospective tourists.267 A write up on the project in Canadian Business in
June 2011 refers, without irony, to its “bargain prices” as an attraction for retirees
that “colonize the shorelines of Central American and Caribbean countries.”268
The environmental permits for the first two projects were actually granted
under the dictatorship in late January 2010.269 But Jorgenson’s relations with
the Lobo family—he is a close associate of Pepe Lobo’s brother and advisor
Ramón—and Canada’s aggressive support for the post-coup Honduran regime
have paid dividends for the tourist magnate. President Lobo invited Jorgenson
to a meeting in Trujillo on November 27, 2010, which included Ramón, among
other government representatives. The president instructed government officials
and the mayor of Trujillo to initiate construction as soon as possible.270 During the
Consejo de Ministerios (Council of Ministers) meeting in Trujillo seven months
later, in early June 2011, President Lobo feted Jorgenson with special recognition
for his “contributions” to Trujillo—with Jorgenson proudly proclaiming that
he is now referred to as “the Adopted son of Trujillo”—and topped it off with a
commitment to build a road through the Garífuna communities to connect the
tourist development to Trujillo.271 The Council of Ministers gathering was fol-
lowed, on June 8, by another meeting between Lobo and Jorgenson in Trujillo.
They were also joined by representatives of Canadian Shield Asset Management.
The Canadians discussed a potential investment of C$2 billion to build one of
Honduras’ first “model cities” in Trujillo, of which the tourist project would be
a key part.
Garífuna activists we spoke to in late June 2011 argued that the project is advanc-
ing through the illegal purchase of titled land belonging to their communities. In a
public statement condemning Stephen Harper’s visit to the country, the Consejo
Cívico de Organizaciones Populares y Indígenas de Honduras (Civic Council of
Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, copinh), went so far as to
argue that Life Vision and the Canadian Shield Fund “are promoting ethnicide
against the Garífuna people.”272
Some community members have received death threats, which they suggest
are a consequence of their vocal opposition to the development. We conducted an
interview with Celso Alberto Guillén, a high-profile Garífuna activist, on June 22
in the small community of Guadalupe outside of Trujillo. Garífuna in Guadalupe
have had ongoing conflicts with Jorgenson’s development project. Guillén explained
that he lives in constant fear for his physical safety. He complained that he has been
emotionally and psychologically traumatized by death threats launched against him
by individuals he alleges are associated with Jorgenson. He has been personally
threatened with a gun, and an individual approached his young daughter recently
and told her that he was going to put two bullets into her father.273
Guillén argues that while Garífuna land rights have always been under threat in
Honduras, in the 1990s “a process of land redistribution took place and the state
made a commitment with these communities to provide them with land titles so
they could have full ownership of their lands,” and in some cases, such as Guadalupe,
land titles do exist. But under the Life Vision project land is being taken “without
a prior consent of the community.” Garífuna activists such as Guillén see the fight
against Life Vision as one more struggle to face in a long history of defiance: “the
Garífuna have been resisting for more than 500 years against exclusion, xenophobia,
marginalization, discrimination.”
Jorgenson’s tourist development plans extend further still. One controversial
site is Capiro Calentura National Park, known for its biodiversity. Together with
the adjacent Guiamoreto Lagoon Wildlife Reserve the area covers an expanse
of over ten thousand hectares. Garífuna and indigenous communities have long
resided in this region, but their tenuous hold on the land in the face of capitalist
expansion has led the United Nations to signal the fragile state of their environs.
As Canadian investigative journalist Dawn Paley notes, “the language, dance,
and music of the Garífuna peoples were added to the United Nations’ list of rare
cultural traditions in need of safeguarding.”274 The region encompassing the park
and reserve was established as a protected area in 1992. At the time government
agencies were mandated to establish and enforce borders for these areas, but this
process was never carried out, creating legal ambiguity from which Jorgenson is
benefiting today.
The first two development projects in the area, Alta Vista and Campo del Mar,
are being built on a mountain and a beach section of the park and reserve territory.
Jorgenson claims that the property in question was acquired legally from a family
in the area.275 The Garífuna were in fact given collective titles to a small portion of
their land near Trujillo, including where these Life Vision developments are taking
place, in the early twentieth century. They argue that a former leader illegally and
wrongfully sold the land—without the consent of the rest of the community—in
2007.276 Community activists have started a community radio station which we
had the privilege of visiting in June 2011. The radio shows feature discussions that
are critical of the tourist developments. The radio journalists and activists we met
there are now among the many receiving regular death threats for their failure to
bow down. Jorgenson, it appears, will soon be joined by other Canadian capitalists
looking to make profits off beach properties of dispossessed Garífuna communities.
Following the initial success of Life Vision and the signing of the trade agreement,
representatives of Canadian company Transat Holiday recently visited Trujillo and
announced a US$20 million investment in the construction of the tourist port.277
The Canadians had high stakes in helping to forge an agreeable outcome to the
Honduran coup for capitalists in the mining, maquila, and tourist sectors, among
others. Canadian investors had a straightforward interest in securing the stability
of the post-coup regime which can be traced back directly to their material con-
nections in mining, maquilas, and tourism.
The Economics of Canada’s Strategic Engagement

From the vantage point of the Canadian state and capital, the Tegucigalpa-San José
Accord weakened the threat that grassroots resistance might otherwise have posed.
And economic strategizing for the future was able to proceed without interruption.
With the distraction of the “political crisis” behind it, “reconciliation” a fait accompli,
Lobo’s hyper-neoliberalism proceeding apace and the resistance contained, for the
time being at least, prospects for Canadian capitalist expansion and intensification
in Honduras improved considerably compared to Zelaya’s period in office. This was
always a central goal of Canadian foreign policy towards Honduras, and certainly
animated its intervention into the political opening provided by the coup.
While diplomatic energies following the coup were focused on the political
resolution, more explicit economic diplomacy shifted to the forefront of the
Honduras file when Lobo came to power. Time would not be wasted, and Canada’s
defense of the assault on Honduran constitutional democracy would be made to
bear fruit. Canadian politicians, with business leaders in tow, would come call-
ing. Indeed, the day after Lobo’s inauguration Reeder and the head of cida in
Honduras, Daniel Arsenault, made a “courtesy” call to Mario Canahuati, Lobo’s
new Foreign Affairs Minister, businessman, and member of one of the country’s
wealthiest families. It was the first such call by an ambassador to Canahuati, and
portended of efforts to come, exploiting Canada’s position as a strong ally in the
face of international hostility.278
The most public expressions of the re-energized economic diplomacy follow-
ing Lobo’s inauguration were Kent’s excursions in February and August of 2010.
Aimed on the one hand at challenging Honduras’ political isolation, they were also
very much intended to support Canadian capital’s push for greater access to the
Honduran market. Expressing political solidarity was not the sole agenda item of
Kent’s “high level meetings” with Lobo and his key cabinet ministers, and nor did
Kent limit his time to the latter. The Minister of State and embassy officials also
met with Canadian business leaders and toured their operations. These trips were
used to facilitate a process of dialogue between Canadian capital and Honduran
political leaders, garnering commitments from Honduran interlocutors to “facilitate
investment, particularly foreign investment,” as one embassy Situational Report
notes.279 Advocacy and engagement with Honduran leaders regarding the interests
of Canadian capital pre-dates the coup. Foreign Affairs and International Trade’s
annual Country Strategy Process for Honduras has regularly identified “positioning
Canadian business strategically” and increasing the “number of business oppor-
tunities and intelligence generated in support of Canadian companies” as key
goals for its work in the country (as it does for many other countries).280 During
the coup, embassy officials and the head of cida (whose office is located in the
office of the embassy in Tegucigalpa) were in fact in regular contact with leading
Canadian companies to share opinions on the political situation and discuss the
latter’s investments.281
fait obviously saw an opportunity to be seized following its demonstration
of support for a negotiated resolution after June 29, 2009 and for the Lobo gov-
ernment, establishing after the coup a Canadian business advocacy council in
Honduras composed of Canadian investors in order, one fait report notes, to
“facilitate dialogue with the host government.”282 That “host government” would be
the Micheletti dictatorship. The same report stresses that embassy officials “remain
in close contact with all Canadian investors in Honduras, and regularly visit their
investments including in the extractive and textile sector.”283 A little over a month
after Lobo’s inauguration and Reeder’s and Arsenault’s congratulatory correspond-
ence to the government, the embassy’s Trade Commissioner met with the new
Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Rigoberto Cuéllar, a meeting
that was, the Ambassador reports to the Vice President of Breakwater Resources,
“very positive.”284 The Trade Commissioner’s meeting was part of a serious push
by the embassy and cida at promoting “closer engagement” between the mining
industry and the Lobo government, with the ultimate aim being a new mining law
amenable to Canadian investors (discussed further below).285 Canadian officials
also arranged meetings in early 2010 between Gildan and representatives of the new
Lobo government.286 At the same time, as Sandra Cuffe reports, the Department
of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (which was the result of the fait and
cida merger in 2013) has been providing funding via its aid envelope for technical
assistance of Honduras’ nascent hydrocarbons sector.287
In an effort to create a hospitable environment for investment generally, the

Canadian state has long promoted what it calls “public sector reform” and “fiscal
discipline,” which has generally meant respectively privatization and austerity.288
As part of this orientation, fait’s pre-coup Country Strategy Process report for
Honduras had already noted how cida ought to play a key role in pushing public
sector reform in the country and that such “development assistance efforts are at
the heart of our bilateral relationship with Honduras.”289 Along similar lines, the
Canadian state, through the Canadian Commercial Corporation (ccc), has also
quietly facilitated what some Hondurans believe to be the partial privatization of
a Honduran state agency, which raises money through a national lottery for chil-
dren’s and family support programs. The Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (pani:
National Children’s Trust), according to the Honduran government, was running
a debt. So Honduras and the ccc negotiated a financing arrangement in which
Canadian Banknote (a company specializing in, among other things, products for
lottery systems) will inject 120 million lempiras (approximately C$6.3 million)
from 2012 to 2016 into pani to pay off its debt to the Honduran government and
modernize its lottery system, in return for 45 percent of its future profits.290
Stronger economic ties between Canada and Honduras do not turn exclusively
on foreign investment. In addition to opening access to the Honduran market and
resources, Canadian officials have been promoting access to cheap Honduran labour
for Canadian-based employers. In one of his communiqués to Ottawa, Reeder notes
that “labour cooperation looks set to grow and Honduras is becoming an important
source country to fill Canadian labour shortages.” 291 The coup has allowed Canada
to bring Honduras into the orbit of Latin American and Caribbean countries that
provide a plentiful supply of cheap and vulnerable labour, without citizenship, to
primarily labour-intensive Canadian industries whose profitabilty hinges in large
measure on keeping wages low and rights to a minimum.
Free Trade Agreement

The first coup de grâce of Canada’s push for more extensive access to the Honduran
market was the bilateral Free Trade Agreement (fta). Signed by Harper and Lobo
on July 26, 2011, the fta was a culmination of Canada’s aggressive economic
diplomacy, though it was made more palatable to the official international com-
munity through the formal reintegration of Honduras into the oas. The fta was
presented as an expression of normalized relations with a democratic Honduras.
In August 2010, Reeder was promoted to Director General for Latin America
and the Caribbean in fait. He was replaced by new Ambassador, Cameron Mackay.
Mackay’s appointment was influenced by a desire to advance trade negotiations
between Canada and Honduras. His cv for fait, which should give one a good idea
of the role the Department envisions for the Canadian embassy, includes stints as
a member of Canada’s Permanent Mission to the World Trade Organization; trade
and economic relations officer; senior trade policy officer (wto); Trade Policy
and Planning Division; deputy director of the Regional Trade Policy Division;
and director of regional trade policy for the Americas.292 Indeed, not long after
his appointment (but before his credentials had been received by the Honduran
government from Ottawa) arrangments were made to meet with Canadian investors
in Honduras and with Honduran cabinet ministers to discuss the mining law.293
Honduras was originally part of the Central American Four (ca4) multilat-
eral negotiations with Canada, which also included Guatemala, El Salvador, and
Nicaragua. But having built up its political capital as an ardent ally of the post-coup
Honduran regimes, and knowing Lobo was a strong supporter of foreign invest-
ment and free markets, Canada started negotiating with Honduras independently
of the rest of the ca4 in December 2010. With the ca4 talks not moving nearly as
efficiently as Canada wanted, Honduras was an easy target following the coup, with
fait reflecting prosaically that now, “Canada is closer to reaching an agreement
with Honduras than it is with the other three countries.” A successful bilateral
negotiation was perhaps also seen as leverage to advance negotiations with the
remaining ca4 by fait strategists, who noted in their announcement about mov-
ing ahead bilaterally with Honduras that “Canada remains open to re-engaging in
negotations” with Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.294
Not surprisingly, representatives of the mining industry talked up the opportu-
nities for increased investment provided by an fta. Exploration had stalled after
Zelaya placed a moratorium on new exploration activities and in the absence of a
new mining law. A fait press release on the state of bilateral negotiations tersely
noted that “Honduras offers promising opportunities for Canadian businesses
and workers.”295 The president of the Asociación Nacional de Minería Metálica
en Honduras (National Association of Metallic Mining in Honduras, anaminh),
Santos Gabino Carbajal, was more specific, stating that “without a doubt it [the
fta] will increase investment” in mining; the majority of that, of course, will be
Canadian. 296 While not specific to mining, the fta was an important signal that
Honduras is open for Canadian business, and represented one important step in the
process of opening the floodgates to Canadian mining capital. After several years
of uncertainty in the industry due to legal challenges to the existing law and the
Zelaya-instituted moratorium, it was six months after the signing of the fta when
the new mining law was introduced into the Congress. It was not just the mining
sector that expressed its pleasure at the negotiations, though. They were praised
by Jesús Canahuati, member of one of the most powerful maquila dynasties in
Honduras, and brother of Lobo’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, as mentioned above.
For Canahuati, the negotiations sent “an important message to other investors”
that post-coup Honduras is a “favourable climate for investment.”297 It will benefit

the maquila sector, but perhaps just as importantly it gives greater weight to the
idea that Honduras, despite its political problems, is a legitimate destination for
foreign capital.
The real and symbolic significance of the fta was reflected in Harper’s attend-
ance at the signing in Honduras. Not only did Harper announce the completion of
the Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement and meet Canadian business leaders
(taking a tour of a Gildan factory along the way), but he became the first foreign
leader to visit Honduras and meet Lobo since the country was readmitted to the
oas on June 1, 2011. Harper’s summit with Lobo was intended to signal that the
Honduran regime was a deserving member of the international community. It
also unambiguously expressed a driving force behind Canada’s Honduran inter-
vention. As Harper declared, “a free trade agreement with Honduras is a key part
of our Government’s agenda to open new markets for Canadian business, create
new opportunities for our workers and contribute to Canada’s future prosper-
ity.”298 However much Harper may have touted the “opportunities” for Canadian
workers, this was little more than the usual obfuscation that accompanies such
celebrations so as not to publicly concede outright the narrow band of victors in
the agreement. The biggest beneficiaries will be, far and away, Canadian maquila,
mining, and tourist investors.
While Canada had already been negotiating for a fta with Honduras as part of
the ca4, there is a line that goes straight from the coup through to Harper announc-
ing the bilateral fta’s conclusion. The removal of Zelaya and his replacement with
Lobo, supported by Canada, is the context in which the agreement was negotiated
and concluded bilaterally. Given that the ca4 negotiations had stalled, and that the
electoral Centre-Left and social movements had gained a voice in the mainstream
political debate in Honduras, without the coup the agreement would not have been
concluded. This is certainly not lost on Honduran social movements, who con-
demned the fta. The Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de
Honduras (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras,
copinh), for example, is clear about the connection between the fta, Canada, and
the coup: “the free trade agreement between Canada and Honduras is the fruit of
the coup d’etat and its continuation”—a “coup supported by the Canadian govern-
ment and Canadian companies.” It is also clear about Canada’s intention: the fta,
it argues, represents “a violation of our sovereignty” that will involve the “usurpa-
tion of the territories, cultures and lives of indigenous and African” Hondurans,
and makes the coup clearer “to the indigenous and African Hondurans” in whose
territories are situated the “resources Canadian transnationals need.”299
Conclusion
The Harper government implicated Canada quite deeply in the toxic mix of
repression and free market fundamentalism that is post-coup Honduras, and
offered unfailing support to subsequent post-coup regimes. Although the transi-
tion from Zelaya to Lobo was initiated by unconstitutional means, Lobo’s stature
as an ally of Canadian interests meant that those circumstances could be ignored
or downplayed, as could the horrendous abuses of human rights. As we noted in
the introduction, such a posture by Canadian diplomats has become part of the
familiar calculus of the Canadian state when its political leaders are dealing with
the overthrow of progressive governments that threatened the interests of Canadian
capital: so long as the victim is a leader perceived as unfriendly by Canada, uncon-
stitutional means and human rights abuses can be made tolerable.
The Honduran case contrasts sharply with the Malian coup, which took place
three years later, in March 2012. In the latter case, a Canadian political and military
ally overseeing a favourable mining regime, Amadou Toumani Touré, was over-
thrown in a military coup. Canada responded even before the coup was successful.
Foreign Affairs Minister, John Baird, warned that he was “deeply concerned by
reports coming out of Bamako, Mali, where certain elements of the military appear
to have attacked the presidential palace.” He added, in much stronger language than
was ever used regarding coup plotters in Honduras, that “the democratic will of the
Malian people must be respected.”300 Following the coup, Baird announced that
“Canada utterly condemns this attack on democracy” and that “the perpetrators
of the coup d’etat in Mali need to be sent a clear message, that democracy, consti-
tutional order and stability must be restored in Mali.”301
As Kent and the embassy were promoting the San José-Tegucigalpa negotia-
tions, the embassy was encouraging Canadian ngos, based almost exclusively in the
poor rural areas of the country where Zelaya remained popular, to engage with the
Micheletti government, “as they deemed necessary.” With a significant Canadian
ngo presence in the country and an important donor relationship (Honduras
was an official cida Country of Focus and Canada was chairing an international
donor’s group at the time of the coup), aid delivered to the government could have
been used as a lever against the military dictatorship. Cutting off aid to punish a
dictatorship may not be the best result for impoverished aid recipients (assuming
aid money reaches its intended targets and is not pilfered by government officials),
but for our purposes here it is worth noting that three years later the Harper gov-
ernment, in stark contrast to its response to the Honduran coup, cut off bilateral
aid to the unconstitutional government in Mali, with International Cooperation
Minister, Bev Oda, declaring that Canada did not want to “further add to the woes
of the average Malian.”302
In late January 2014, the historian Dana Frank noted that in a few days,
a new president will take the helm in Honduras: Juan Orlando Hernández.
He’s handsome. He’s charming. He’s young. He looks as though he was
born wearing a clean white shirt. And he’s a dangerous thug. Hernández
was one of the key architects of the 2009 military coup, and has a stellar
track record ever since overthrowing the rule of law.303
Hernández was the presidential candidate for Lobo’s National Party in the
November 2013 general election. In addition to having been an enthusiastic
supporter of the coup in 2009, Hernández, as head of the Congress under Lobo’s
administration, also led what has become known colloquially as the “technical
coup” of 2013, whereby four members of the Supreme Court were summarily
sacked and replaced by conservative stalwarts. He also recently supported the
illegal appointment of a new attorney general to a five-year post. Hernández was,
furthermore, a key player behind the establishment of a new five thousand-strong
military police force in Honduras during the Lobo regime, and campaigned dur-
ing the presidential race under the terrifying slogan, “a soldier on every corner.”304
For much of 2013, Xiomara Castro, the presidential candidate for the left-wing
libre party which emerged out of the resistance, led in the polls, sometimes
alternating places with Salvador Nasralla, of the newly established Partido
Anticorrupción (Anti-Corruption Party, pac). In the immediate lead-up to the elec-
tions, however, the traditional National and Liberal parties began to gain ground in
the polls. The official results ultimately released by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal
on December 12, 2013 determined that Hernández had secured the presidency
with 37 percent of the vote, beating Castro’s 29.305 Trailing these two frontrunners
were Mauricio Villeda of the Liberal Party, with 20 percent, and Nasralla of the
pac, with 13 percent.
The Canadian government was, unsurprisingly, pleased with the election
results of November 2013. Lynne Yelich, Minister of State, travelled to Honduras
from January 25 to 27, 2014 to attend Hernández’s inauguration. Foreign Affairs,
Trade and Development Canada made it clear that Ottawa was keen to deepen
relations with the Hernández regime going forward. “Canada and Honduras have
a growing commercial relationship, and Honduras benefits from long-standing
and substantial Canadian development cooperation programming,” said Minister
of State Yelich. “The signing of the Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement in
November 2013 [more on this below] is an indicator of the growing strength of
our bilateral relations.”306
While electoral observers from the Organization of American States (oas) and
the European Union (E.U.) declared the elections to have been free and fair, their
reports largely ignored the generalized context of militarization in which the elec-
tions took place, as well as the targeted political assassinations and intimidation
of the political opposition, and particularly activists, candidates, and campaigners
affiliated with libre.307 Twenty-two libre candidates, activists, and campaigners
were murdered between May 2012 and the November 2013 elections.308 libre
headquarters in Tegucigalpa were surrounded two days before the elections by
armed men in masks, apparently military police.309
Hernández has pledged to continue the political-economic project that he
inherited from Lobo—rooted principally in attracting foreign multinational capital
to extract natural resources. This is particularly disturbing given the vast empirical
data available on the devastating social and economic consequences of that model
since 2009.310 Economic growth has weakened considerably since 2009. Between
2010 and 2013, average annual gdp growth was a mere 3.5 percent. By comparison,
from 2006 to 2008 average annual growth hit 5.7 percent. In 2006 and 2007, gdp
was over 6 percent, and the country still grew at a rate of 4.2 percent—the highest
growth rate in Central America—in 2008, despite the fact that Honduras’ largest
trading partner, the U.S., had slipped into the beginnings of what would become
the biggest global crisis in world capitalism since the Great Depression. In 2009, the
global recession hit the Honduran economy hard, principally through a reduction
in external demand and a decrease in remittances being sent home from migrant
Honduran workers located in the U.S. economy. Clearly, then, a negative external
environment played a role in low growth rates since 2009. However, economists
have pointed out that the extent of the problems was exacerbated by the neoliberal
policies of the Lobo administration. There was space for countercyclical spend-
ing that could have cushioned the blow, as it did in many other Latin American
countries over this period.311
Social inequality has also worsened dramatically since the coup, after a four-year
improving trend beginning in 2006 under Zelaya’s administration. Since 2010,
Honduras has gradually acquired the worst income distribution of any country in
Latin America, which is in turn the most unequal region in the world.312 In spite of
relatively low aggregate growth in 2010 and 2011, the wealthiest decile of Honduran
society actually did better than they had before the recession. The wealthiest 10
percent captured the entirety of income gains from 2010 to 2011, while the rest
of the population experienced a contraction in their incomes, such that they are
now at the lowest they have been since 2006.313 Poverty has likewise taken a turn
for the worse. Under Zelaya, rates of poverty and extreme poverty fell by 7.7 and
20.9 percent respectively, whereas during the post-coup period the poverty and
extreme poverty rates increased by 13.2 and 26.3 percent respectively.314
A significant portion of the explanation for the negative trends in poverty and
inequality have to do with social spending patterns. While Zelaya was able to
achieve relatively large reductions in poverty and extreme poverty rates in part
because of a context of high growth, the increase in social spending as a percent of
gdp—including on health and education—he oversaw was also critical. Between
2005 and 2009 social spending as a percent of gdp rose from 10.4 to 13.3, whereas
it has decreased since 2010 to 10.9 percent of gdp.315 Adding to the negative impact
on poverty and inequality stemming from the decline in social spending has been
the worsening rate of unemployment since the coup. Between 2008 and 2012, the
rate of involuntary part-time workers and the unemployed increased from 6.8 to
14.1 percent.316
While the post-coup political and economic environment has therefore been
devastating for most Hondurans, it has been a boon for Canadian capital. While par-
ticularly intense in the context of a dictatorship, the general pursuit of the interests
of Canadian capital by the Canadian state in Honduras is hardly anomalous. The
trend is far-reaching, indeed generalizable throughout much of Latin America. The
dynamics of Canadian foreign policy in Guatemala, which we turn our attention
to in the following chapter, provides an additional exemplary model of Ottawa’s
steadfast commitment to twenty-first century imperialism.
Chapter 3
Mining in the Wake of Genocide:

Canadian Corporations in
Twenty-First Century Guatemala
G uatemala provides the quintessential backdrop to the wider Cold War narrative
in Latin America: the October Revolution of 1944 inspired hope for a socialized
democracy through Agrarian Reform and other initiatives; the 1954 U.S.-backed
coup cut short that dream and instituted the start of a reign of terror and the con-
cretization of a counterinsurgent state; the Left was forced eventually to take up
guerrilla insurgency after all other means of political action were thwarted; and
the scourge of death squads, rapes, torture, disappearances, kidnappings, and mas-
sacres, fortified by U.S.-trained and equipped central intelligence agencies, reached
its apogee in the racialized genocide of 1981–1982. In 1996, with over 200,000
murdered by the Guatemalan state, the four-decade-long civil war ended with the
Left vanquished, and the ideal of democratic socialism effectively crushed.317 “To
write about Guatemala,” the anthropologist Carlota Mcallister points out, “is to
write about twentieth-century Latin America’s bloodiest armed conflict. Rapacious
agrarian capitalism, combined with systemic Ladino (nonindigenous) oppression
of the Mayan majority, made Guatemala fertile terrain for struggles for radical
change, but also made those struggles exceptionally punishing to fight.”318
The 1996 peace accords allowed for a concerted shift toward neoliberal eco-
nomic restructuring and the consolidation of a new model of accumulation rooted
in attracting foreign investment to a variety of extractive industries. It is within
this context that Canadian mining companies have rapidly expanded their reach
and influence in the Guatemalan political economy. As is true elsewhere in Latin
85
America and the Caribbean, the expansion of mining activities under the control
of multinational capital in twenty-first century Guatemala has led to intensified
social conflict and the slow remilitarization of politics in an effort on the part of
the economic and political elite to contain unrest. Since 2003, a new wave of social
protests has emerged in the country for the first time since the close of the war.
Rural Mayan indigenous communities are at the leading edge of this new resist-
ance, and opposition to mining is at the very core of their movements. With the
rising level of conflict in the countryside, the response of the state, private security
companies working for transnational corporations, and paramilitary groupings has
been intensifying repression. A new dialectic of popular resistance from below and
ferocious violence from above is a defining feature of the Guatemalan present.
Canadian mining capital, and the coercive apparatuses working on its behalf, is a
crucial element in this dynamic.
This chapter proceeds in three parts. First, it provides a long historical backdrop
of the Guatemalan social formation, emphasizing critical turning points in the coun-
try’s political economy since the mid-twentieth century, the military genocide in the
context of civil war, and the transition through the peace accords to the neoliberal
present. Second, it maps out the array of Canadian mining corporations active in
the country, and explains their involvement in the new patterns of accumulation,
exploitation, and violence. The third and final section then explains the new wave
of class struggle evolving in the Guatemalan countryside, and the ways in which
Canadian mining capital has become a principal target of this resistance.
Historical Portrait
Between 1931 and 1944 the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico controlled the country.
Free elections in 1944 opened up a new season in Guatemalan politics, however,
with Juan José Arévalo’s ascendancy to the presidency. Arévalo, who distanced
himself rhetorically from both Marxism and individualistic capitalism, was a self-
styled “spiritual socialist.” Through an array of modest social reforms—including
the Law of Forced Rental requiring large landholders to lease the uncultivated
sectors of their land at low rates, the enactment of a social security system by
1950, and the country’s first labour code allowing strikes and union organizing—
Arévalo earned the dual ire of U.S. foreign policy makers and the domestic ruling
class alike.319 A State Department memorandum of 1948 noted that although the
reforms were not “proof of communism,” this certainly did not indicate that there
was “no communist inspiration behind them.”320 The move of Jacobo Árbenz into
the presidency in 1950, with 65 percent of the popular vote, seemed at first glance
to offer respite to U.S. functionaries and the Guatemalan landed class. But within
months, the State Department radically departed from its initial assessment of
Mining In The Wake Of Genocide: Canadian Corporations In Twenty-first Century Guatemala 87
Árbenz as a moderate alternative to Arévalo, highlighting what it took to be “the

ascending curve of Communist influence” in the new administration.321 It is now
beyond reasonable dispute in the historiography of Guatemala that neither the
regime of Arévalo (1944–1950), nor of Árbenz (1950–1954) ever posed a real
threat to the sanctity of private property or the institutional parameters of liberal
democracy, but this proved no obstacle to their opponents pursuing the ideologi-
cal frame of a red menace.322
Among other things, immediately at stake were the considerable investments of
the U.S.-based United Fruit Company. Within Guatemala, the company had come
to own a remarkable 42 percent of the country’s farm land, against a wider backdrop
of extreme land concentration by a tiny elite, and corresponding landlessness for
the indigenous agrarian majority; externally, the company had unusually tight
political ties to the highest echelons of the Dwight Eisenhower administration—the
former law firm of the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, was the longstanding
legal representation of the company; the head of the Central Intelligence Agency
(cia), Allen Dulles, had been on the company’s board of trustees; the company’s
preeminent public relations officer, Ed Whitman, was married to Ann Whitman,
the private secretary to Eisenhower. What influence the company could not chan-
nel immediately through these connections was purchased through the coverage
of journalists’ expenses on their visits to the country, ensuring the “correct” angle
in the subsequent stories in the New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, and
New Leader, among others. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1953, through which
Árbenz committed himself to the expropriation (with compensation) of 234,000
acres of the company’s land, clearly had something to do with the the subsequent
intervention of the cia in the destabilization and eventual overthrow of the Árbenz
regime in 1954.323
But there were wider, regional shifts in U.S. security policy in Latin America that
extended well beyond the Guatemalan theatre, suggesting United Fruit’s specific
material interests fortuitously overlapped with an overarching set of U.S. strategic
aims. Having abandoned its relative multilateralism vis-à-vis Latin America in the
1930s and 1940s, by the early 1950s the U.S. state had explicitly stated the second-
ary importance of democracy in the evaluation of any Latin American government,
and the primary importance of anti-Communist commitment. “Technical and
financial aid provided to security forces was stepped up,” historian Greg Grandin
observes, “now part of a more systemic policy of containment, which included
the support and orchestration of coups and destabilization programs (Guatemala,
Honduras, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina), and, when all else failed, invasion
(the Dominican Republic and Grenada).”324
1954 marked a turning point in Guatemalan history. The stage had been set
for the rise of the counterinsurgent state, the evisceration of reformist electoral
projects stemming from the Left, the rise of guerrilla movements—first small
bands of ladinos rooted in a foco strategy and later mass-based insurgencies with
organic ties and bases in indigenous communities of the highlands—and the
eventual escalation of military violence to the scale of genocide in the early 1980s.
A popular narrative to have emerged out of this history is one of dos demonios, or
two demons—the ladino guerrillas, on the one side, and the ladino military on
the other. Trapped between was a hapless, victimized Mayan majority, devoid of
agency and political intention. While it is true that the guerrilla leaderships were
principally constituted by ladinos, and that there was a failure on their part to
adequately incorporate and represent Mayans, the two demons thesis is nonethe-
less highly misleading. To “treat the Guatemalan state and its armed opposition as
equally guilty of genocide,” Mcallister points out, “is not only to ignore statistics
showing that state forces committed 93 percent of wartime human rights violations
and the guerrillas only 3 percent, but also to occlude the phenomenon of Mayan
participation in Guatemalan leftist groups, including armed ones.”325
Throughout the 1970s, demands for reform increased through an array of
popular movement activity. The response from the state and ruling class was
ever-escalating violence, carried out by the police, military, and death squads.
Reformist parties such as the Christian Democrats, having raised expectations,
were ultimately unable to win gains for their rural indigenous constituencies. As
a consequence, growing numbers of Guatemalans, including Mayans, who had
already been politicized in reformist political projects, joined the armed struggle.326
Alongside this process of radicalization through repression, grassroots organiza-
tions within the Catholic Church began to form Christian Base Communities
as part of the eventual formation of a “Church of the Poor” perspective. These
variegated religious currents fed into indigenous politicization in complex ways.327
Between 1976 and 1978, these developments led to the formation of the Comité
de Unidad Campesina (Committee of Peasant Unity, cuc), which included poor
ladino agricultural workers, and Mayan peasants and agricultural workers, but with
the latter taking the dominant role in leadership.328 Although the cuc was a non-
military organization that transcended the boundaries of the guerrilla movement,
it is nonetheless important to point out that it “was baptized on April 15, 1978, at
a meeting of the egp’s [Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres, Guerrilla Army of the
Poor] national leadership, and…quickly came to dwarf every previous Guatemalan
indigenous political group.”329
Another factor was the changing strategic orientation of the guerrillas them-
selves. By the early 1970s the main guerrilla organizations had come to the
conclusion that the focused, small, vanguardist strategy of the foco had not worked
in the 1960s because it was overly militaristic and lacked a mass basis. One symp-
tom of this early lack of concern with slowly accumulating a mass base had been
a systematic neglect of the material, political, and cultural needs and interests of
the Mayan population. By the early 1970s, as the guerrilla organizations were
beginning to rearticulate themselves in novel forms, they began to reach out in
an effort to build organic links with indigenous communities. The armed struggle
reached its apex in the early 1980s, recruiting between 6,000 and 8,000 armed
fighters, and 250,000 to 500,000 active collaborators and supporters between 1980
and 1981. As an expression of this dynamic growth and concomitant guerrilla
convergence, the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (Guatemalan
National Revolutionary Unity) was formed in early 1982, drawing together all of
the hitherto divided armed organizations.330 Drawing on the many ethnographic
interviews with Mayan guerrillas he conducted in the highlands of the country,
Grandin makes the following assessment: “Marxism, as a theory of how to under-
stand and act in the world, gave inhabitants in what was one of the most subjugated
regions not only in Guatemala but arguably in Latin America a means to insist on
their consequence.”331
In the cities, too, building on a long history of trade union struggle against state
terror,332 and student activism in groups like the Frente Unido del Estudiantado
Guatemalteco Organizado (United Front of Guatemalan Students), the late 1970s
and very early 1980s witnessed an effervescence of left-wing militancy in myriad
forms. “In 1978, shantytown dwellers, bus drivers, factory and state workers,
students, and almost everyone else in Guatemala City brought it to a halt to raise
wages and stop an increase in bus fares,” notes historian Deborah T. Levenson:
In mid-1979 the call for a democratic and revolutionary Guatemala was

pervasive, and many people sat by their radios listening to the Sandinistas
take Managua.…It did not seem unrealistic to think revolution was on
the horizon. Not only did tens of thousands join the revolutionary fronts
in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in some areas of Gautemala these
new recruits pushed the guerrilla leadership to take stronger military
initiatives.333
The early 1980s registered the beginning of a tragic reversal, however.

Throughout the 1970s, the increasing mobilization, and the deepening of demands
for reform, had precipitated a growing unity across the state and ruling class and
their array of coercive apparatuses that would by the 1980s allow for an unprec-
edented wave of violence from on high.334 The military, while eminently capable of
repression of popular movements for many decades, took a qualitative turn in the
intensity of its assault on the population. The cities were terrorized, but it was even
worse in “rural Maya communities, where the military committed acts of genocide
premised on its racism and its historic fear of Maya rebellion.”335 In 1981, a scorched
earth campaign was initiated, leading to the murder of over one hundred thousand
Mayans, and the uprooting and displacement of many more indigenous communi-
ties. Throughout 1982 and most of 1983 the army’s campaign continued. Alongside
genocidal elimination, the military began to exercise a structural influence over
rural life through the creation of civil patrols that forced able-bodied Mayan men
to serve in local militias and participate in the killing of neighbouring communities,
and sometimes their own, or be killed themselves. While often militarily ineffec-
tive, the incorporation of roughly nine hundred thousand people into the militias
allowed for an incredibly deep systematization of regimented discipline, controlled
movement, and dissemination of propaganda in the countryside.336
“By the time the war ended in 1996,” Grandin explains, “the state had killed
two hundred thousand people, disappeared forty thousand, and tortured unknown
thousands more.”337 It would be difficult to exaggerate the long term consequences
of this qualitative shift in state terror and the military defeat of the Left through
genocidal war for the disarticulation of popular cultures of opposition and resist-
ance in the country. The political counterrevolution of racist militarism was what
made possible the eventual shifting of gears toward an economic counterrevolution
of radical neoliberal restructuring.
Indeed, the 1996 peace accords established the parameters for the deepening
and consolidation of a neoliberal program for restructuring that had been unfolding
in a piecemeal fashion since the Christian Democratic administration of Vinicio
Cerezo (1986–1991). In early 1997, the National Advancement Party let loose a
structural adjustment program of marked intensity and scope.338 It laid the basis for
a thoroughgoing transformation of existing class structures, both rural and urban,
and new forms of capitalist expansion and penetration into all avenues of social life.
In the countryside, the counter-insurgency efforts of the 1980s provoked a
veritable tide of displaced peasants, annihilating peasant economies, and paving the
way—through blood and fire—for the full incorporation of the rural indigenous
population into the system of market imperatives characteristic of the capital-
ist mode of production. As a result of this dynamic of primitive accumulation
through war, both the old latifundia (large-landholdings) and minifundia (small
plots) patterns of land tenure were transformed, allowing for the first time the full
establishment of a capitalist wage labour system in rural areas.339
Millions had been uprooted, fleeing temporarily into mountain areas, across the
border to Mexican refugee camps or into the margins of that country’s informal
economy, and sometimes, from there, onto the United States. At a conservative
minimum, fifty-five thousand people internally displaced from war resettled in
the poorest barrios of Guatemala City, often shedding any Mayan signifiers from
their dress to escape racist persecution. These people entered an urban reserve of
unemployed or precariously employed, adopting a panoply of survival strategies in
both the formal and informal domains of the city’s economic life.340 Traumatized
migrant youth joined the growing numbers of vulnerable cheap labourers who were
being fed into the escalating drug trade. By 2000, almost 80 percent of cocaine being
shipped to the United States from South America passed through Guatemala. The
warring gangs of Mara-18 (m-18) and Mara Salvatrucha (ms-13) sunk their roots
in this new “post-conflict” Guatemalan political economy after setting up base after
wide-scale deportations from Los Angeles in 1996.
The violence of the narco trade flowed up from Colombia and down from
Mexico, blending together with extra-legal paramilitary violence associated with
multinational corporations seeking to quell insubordinate communities standing
in the way of tourist development projects or mining exploration initiatives. The
murder rate fell from thirty-nine per one hundred thousand inhabitants in 2011
to thirty-four in 2012, the lowest figure in a decade, but began to rise again in the
first half of 2013 and continued to be high by international standards.341
At a political level, the transition to polyarchy which accompanied the peace
accords proved functional to renewed rounds of capitalist accumulation which had
been stymied in preceding years by the instability embedded in the insurgency-
counterinsurgency dialectic. Foreign capital fleeing Guatemala in the context of war
had been tailed systematically by the finances of Guatemalan capitalists who opted
in large numbers to park their money in out-of-country bank accounts until the
end of the war. “A change in the mode of social control and the system of domina-
tion,” sociologist William I. Robinson rightly suggests, “was the precondition for a
recovery and reorganization of the process of capital accumulation.”342 As elsewhere
in Central America, the changing model of accumulation in Guatemala over the
1990s and 2000s involved a sharp turn toward large scale tourist development
projects, expanding extractive industry (particularly mining), biofuel plantations,
hydroelectric dam developments, and cheap feminized labour in export processing
zones, or maquiladoras.343
The social impact of neoliberalism in Guatemala was more devastating than the
already terrible wider trends in the rest of Central America over the course of the
1980s and 1990s. By the close of the latter decade 40 percent of the population
remained illiterate, with the average adult receiving only 3.2 years of education.
A third of children were malnourished. Half the population lacked electricity,
and 64 percent went without running water. Under and unemployment crested
at near 40 percent, and 65 percent of those employed eked out a marginal living
in the informal sector. Poverty spiked from 70 percent of the national population
in 1980 to 87 percent in 1991.344 In the context of the global commodities boom
of the early twenty-first century, annual growth of gross domestic product (gdp)
averaged 4.1 percent between 2003 and 2007, before slowing to 3.3, 0.5, 2.9, and
3.9 percent in the years between 2008 and 2011 as the global crisis centred in the
United States and Europe began to impact Latin America and the Caribbean.345
National poverty fell modestly from 60.2 to 54.8 percent between 2002 and 2006,
while rural poverty remained close to the same, shifting from 68 to 66.5 over the
same period.346 Meanwhile, inequality worsened, with the share of national income
going to the poorest quintile of society receiving 3.8 percent in 2002 compared to
only 2.8 percent in 2006. Over the same period, the top quintile improved its share
from 58.6 to 62.6.347 Expressed in terms of the gini coefficient, which measures
income inequality (where 0 is perfect equality and 1 is perfect inequality), the
Guatemalan figures were 0.542 in 2002 and a worse 0.585 in 2006.348
By 2010, the situation remained dire. The average number of years of schooling
for Guatemalan citizens was only 5.6, while in rural areas that fell to 3.8. Twenty-
seven percent of the population was illiterate, youth malnutrition hovered at just
under half the population, and scarcely 37 percent of youth of relevant age graduated
from high school. Structural unemployment and underemployment afflict much
of the population, while the average salary of those finding work barely covers
the basic food basket. Those jobs that are available are increasingly found in the
precarious corners of the informal economy.349 By 2012, more than 78 percent of
the labour force survived in this sector.350
Aside from occasional populist sophistry, there has been little structural devia-
tion from this neoliberal course across the various administrations of Álvaro Arzú
(1996–2000), Alfonso Portillo (2000–2004), Óscar Berger (2004–2008), Álvaro
Colom (2008–2012), and Otto Pérez Molina (2012–2015). And there is little
immediate sign of a change in course coming in the near future. A country report
of June 2013 from the conservative British Economist Intelligence Unit (eiu)
notes with satisfaction its projection for the 2013–2017 period: “The government’s
overall stance will be pro-business, and macroeconomic management will remain
orthodox.”351 Nonetheless, there are signs of worry for investors, which stem from
the most powerful social forces within a slow and incipient rearticulation of popular
movements after the long decline since the 1980s. “Rising opposition from peasant
and indigenous groups has also caused delays in programmes to increase invest-
ment in the mining and energy sector,” the eiu laments. Social and ethnic tensions
will be aggravated in 2013–2017 by growing opposition (in the form

of roadblocks and strikes) to mining activities and the construction of
hydroelectric plants in protected or indigenous areas. Large-scale protests
are a possibility if the government takes a harsh stance in pushing ahead
with new projects.352
It is precisely in this sector of mining, where the new forms of violence associated
with the neoliberal model in Guatemala are most advanced, and the new forms
of popular resistance most insistent on making their presence felt, that Canadian
capital has entered in such an aggressive fashion.
Canada and the Re-Emergence of Mining in Guatemala

Canada is one of the largest foreign investor nations in Guatemala, and was the
second largest in 2009 and 2010, after the U.S.353 This investment is dominated by
mining: as of May 2012, sixteen of seventeen active mining properties (in the explo-
ration or production stage) in Guatemala were Canadian.354 Canadian company
Goldcorp, the second largest gold producer in the world and Guatemala’s largest
source of export-earnings, has become a powerful and extremely controversial force
in Guatemala (as it has in neighbouring Honduras and Mexico). Goldcorp led the
re-emergence of large-scale industrial mining in the country.355
While large-scale industrial metal mining was an important part of Guatemala’s
developmental strategy in the 1960s and 1970s, it declined as the civil war inten-
sified in the 1980s. But as Dougherty observes, “the neoliberal policy regime
emerging from the resolution of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war in 1996, and the
portentous end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement for Guatemala’s maquila sector,
launched Guatemala’s quest for mineral capital.”356 The interests of Canadian min-
ing companies have enjoyed significant advances in Guatemala since the end of
the war and signing of the Peace Accords, though they have faced a considerable
challenge from below and, as a result, have also experienced setbacks. Guatelama
adopted a new mining law, “crafted with input from Guatemala’s nascent mining
industry and foreign interests,” in 1997.357 In an effort to earn the goodwill of
Canadian capital and compete with its Central American neighbours, the new
law called for environmental studies, but made it easier for companies to obtain
licences, relaxed limits on the size of concessions and reduced royalty rates paid
to the state to a mere 1 percent. Guatemala’s Ministry of Energy and Mines also
organized international mining congresses for foreign investors and made visits to
Canada in the 1990s to meet with representatives of its mining industry.358 Behind
the formal legislated support for Canadian companies, the latter also received infor-
mal behind the scenes support from the Guatemalan government, which, during
the presidency of Oscar Berger (2004–2008), reportedly instructed officials from
the Ministerio de Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Ministry of the Environment
and Natural Resources, marn) to accept all relevant environmental impact studies.
Under such favourable conditions, metal exploration by smaller so-called junior
firms increased by 1,000 percent during the 2000s and the country has become
one of the lowest-cost gold-producing countries in the Americas.359
However, a moratorium was placed on the issuance of new licences (produc-
tion and exploration projects continued) in 2006 by President Álvaro Colom,
following a successful court challenge to the mining law by the Centre for Legal,
Environmental and Social Action. The Centre argued that the law did not protect
the rights of indigenous communities, including their right to prior informed con-
sent over development projects that will impact them, as per article 15(2) of the
International Labour Organization convention, to which Guatemala is a party.360
While Colom was viewed as a left-of-centre president, and gave marn more dis-
cretion around environmental impact studies than the Berger administration, he
was neverthless supportive of Canadian mining and never sought to challenge the
influence of Canadian companies or defend the rights of impacted communities,
as we discuss below.361 Indeed, when a new draft law on mining was introduced
into the Guatemalan Congress in September 2009, activists criticized it for failing
to adequately regulate water use, or require consultation with or prior informed
consent from affected communities and, finally, for capping royalty rates at very
low levels, between 1 and 10 percent.362
Not long after taking office, the Pérez Molina administration set to work to
re-energize the mining sector, introducing several amendments to the country’s
mining law and lifting the previous government’s moratorium on the approval of
new concessions, which was instituted in 2008 after the Constitutional Court had
declared several articles in the extant mining law to have been unconstitutional.
Sixty-eight new exploration and exploitation licenses were approved by his govern-
ment in its first six months. The mining proposals include royalty rates higher than
what had been established in the 1990s, but which are still low, at 4 percent for gold
and silver and 3 percent for base metal production. With international commod-
ity and oil prices high, the Pérez government did briefly flirt with a constitutional
proposal in 2012 that if passed would have stipulated that the Guatemalan govern-
ment take as much as a 40 percent stake in new mining and oil projects. But, as a
Pérez adviser reported a few weeks after the proposal was raised, “we realized it
was making a lot of noise internationally and we decided to withdraw it.” With the
mining industry quick to criticize the proposal, the Pérez government ultimately
proved quick to demure to the whims of international capital.363
It is evident that the Canadian embassy, with the support of Ottawa, supports
particular companies despite their widespread involvement in human rights and
ecological abuses. Nonetheless, in the context of growing and widespread opposi-
tion to Canadian companies, embassy officials have also taken a concerted role in
defending the industry as a whole. This has been most explicit when the struggle
against Canadian companies heated up in the mid-2000s. Then-Ambassador James
Lambert—in a textbook case of operating as “a representative for Canadian mining
companies”—responded to the escalating opposition by actually writing a 2004
op-ed article for the Guatemalan daily, Prensa Libre, extolling the virtues of Canada’s
mining industry. “In Canada, mining exploration and exploitation is carried out
in all provinces and territories, creating economic and social opportunities for
many communities, including some 200 indigenous communities,” Lambert tells
Guatemalans in an assertion with which many indigenous communities in Canada
would take serious issue:
Throughout our long history of nearly 150 years of mining production,

our country has become one of the most “intelligent” administrators,
promoters, users and exporters of natural resources in the world. Today,
Canadian businesses are on the vanguard of high technology, environ-
mental protection and social responsibility. This is why they are leaders
of many of the most successful mining operations in the world.364
It would be several years before empirical analysis of global mining-related

conflicts, commissioned by the Mining Association of Canada, revealed the fact
that Canadian companies have the worst record in the entire world; unsurprisingly,
though, Guatemalans themselves were already privy to a burgeoning mass of first-
hand evidence which contradicted Lambert’s glowing review of the industry. In
December of that year, the embassy organized the National Mining Forum, again
with the intention of fortifying the image of Canadian mining companies as unusu-
ally responsible actors within the global industry. The forum featured Jerry Asp,
an Indian Act band leader from Tahltan First Nation in British Columbia who told
Guatemalans that his community initially had similar reservations about mining
developments twenty-five years ago, but have since benefited from allowing the
investment to proceed.365 Two months later, Asp’s office was occupied by elders
from his community seeking his removal from power for selling out to corporate
interests after he expressed support for the B.C. government’s controversial min-
ing plan.366
Lambert then followed the Prensa Libre article and National Mining Forum
with a nationally-televised debate defending Canadian investors. Glossing over
Canada’s history of mining disasters and dispossession of indigenous peoples at
home and abroad,367 Lambert argued to the national audience that
the Canadian experience can be relevant here in Guatemala as has been

the case in mining countries in the process of development, where mining
operations are underway…We’ve learned a lot from this century-and-a-
half of activity, especially good management of environmental issues in
our country.
Next, in an astucious manipulation of the facts, he attempted to mislead viewers

by suggesting that “there is a series of standards” Canadian companies “must follow
before proceeding with their activities at the international level.” As Lambert must
well understand, there are no such mandatory standards enforced by the Canadian
government domestically, nor imposed at the international level. To those com-
munity activists unconvinced by what Lambert was selling by this point in the
debate, the ambassador offered the view that foreign mining investment is, in any
case, an inevitable feature of modernizing economies and thus “sooner or later,
indigenous communities in Guatemala have to face the reality of a global society,”
implying that opponents of Canadian mining are anachronistic and parochial, rather
than ecologically forward-thinking. Striking a particularly pious chord, Lambert
then opined on the disquieting phenomenon of social movements refusing to roll
over in the face of Canadian mining expansion, “activities that are within the legal
framework of the country.” Indeed, for Lambert, while Canadian corporations were
being depicted by opponents as perfidious exploiters of marginalized communities
and the environment, it was rather the activists responsible for blockading mining
activity that ought to have been the objects of scorn and ridicule. Their militancy
“exceeds the norms of the country, and it’s worrying,” Lambert noted. 368
Given the systematic and well-documented violation of international law cap-
tured in the refusal of Canadian companies to seek prior agreement or consent
from affected communities in geographic zones slated for mining development,
and given the Guatemalan government’s consistent abnegation of its responsibil-
ity—or possibly sheer inability—to ensure that Canadian corporations pursue such
agreement or consent, Lambert’s televised intervention would be laughable, were
it not so evidently tragic. With the benefit of hindsight, the ambassador’s public
handwringing about the state of law-and-order with respect to Canadian invest-
ment becomes still more precious, as repression of anti-mining activists actually
intensified and spread from Goldcorp’s Marlin to other Canadian projects in the
years that followed. To fait, however, Lambert’s vigourous defense of Canadian
mining was meritorious, helping earn him an eventual promotion to Director
General for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The embassy has not restricted itself to engagement in a national debate to
advance the interests of Canadian multinationals. With the support of Ottawa,
it has also worked somewhat less publicly to influence Guatemalan politicians
and state officials. According to one official, embassy staff have “regular contact
with” representatives of the Ministerio de Energia y Minas (Ministry of Energy
and Mines, mem), including the Directors of Hydrocarbons and of Mining and
a ministerial advisor.369 Undoubtedly, a priority for the embassy would be the
somewhat precarious state of mining in the country since the 2006 moratorium,
though the full extent of this is hard to discern fully as communications between
the embassy and mem received through Access to Information are heavily redacted.
As one embassy report notes, however, a planned meeting with a mem official
was to discuss “the priorities of the section [of mem] under his responsibility, and
also to talk about his attendance to pdac [Annual meeting of the Prospectors and
Developers Association of Canada] in 2008.”370 Attendance at pdac, encouraged
and fully financed by Canada, is a regular priority for the embassy in Guatemala,
as it is in many countries in the region (and elsewhere in the Global South).
Members of mem are routinely invited to pdac to meet with Canadian officials
and mining representatives. In 2010, for example, five high level officials with the
mem, as well as a political advisor to the President, were brought by the embassy
to Canada for a four-day tour starting in Ottawa. There they met with a series of
fait representatives, including the Assistant Deputy Minister for Latin America
and the Caribbean, as well as representatives from Indian and Northern Affairs
Canada, before heading to pdac in Toronto, where they met separately with the
head of pdac, Goldcorp and representatives from Natural Resources Canada.371
The embassy has also analyzed, in relation to the needs of mining interests and
the spin-off opportunities for Canadian capital stemming from it, the develop-
ment of Guatemala’s electricity sector, noting that with its “vast expertise and
experience, our industry could play an important role in the development of the
electricity sector,” and that “several Canadian companies are already present in the
region…which could place Canada in a preferential position to develop Guatemala’s
electricity sector…as well as put Canada’s foot in the door of the Puebla Panama
projects.”372 Montreal-based Dessau-Soprin had in fact already won a contract to
supervise construction of the region’s first power grid, which spans from Guatemala
to Panama, when the embassy was discussing other opportunities for Canadian
capital opened up by the mining industry.
Goldcorp: Marlin
The flagship project of Canadian capital in Guatemala, and the Canadian project
most emblematic to Guatemalans for the violent and ecologically-devastating
impact of foreign investment, is Goldcorp’s Marlin mine. Receiving C$63 million
from Canada Pension Plan investments and located in the highlands 130 kilometres
northwest of Guatemala City, Marlin was a controversial investment long before
it became operational in 2005, but the opposition has intensified since that point,
with two people associated with the resistance having been killed as a result.
Marlin is one of the first major mining developments since the official end
of Guatemala’s bloody civil war in 1996, and has been viewed as a test case for
foreign companies looking to enter Guatemala to access its natural resources. As
noted above, much of the bloodshed (over two hundred thousand people killed),
caused by paramilitary death squads backed by the United States, was directed
against Maya-Kiché indigenous people in the department of San Marcos, where
Marlin is located, and so the foreign intrusion and security surrounding it have
been unwelcome by most of the local inhabitants. There are eighteen Maya Mam
and Sipakense indigenous communities directly affected by the mine, and in the
years since the Marlin mine was developed Goldcorp has obtained large parcels
of land in the region through fraudulent means and by exploiting the poverty and
vulnerability of the Mayan communities.373
Marlin’s importance stands out not just as a symbol of the recommencement of
large-scale mining in Guatemala, however, but also for its economic significance.
As Peter Kent, then Minister of State for the Americas, proudly proclaimed in a
speech to the Inter-American Dialogue in 2009, Marlin was the Guatemalan gov-
ernment’s single largest source of revenue in 2009, a fact that undoubtedly affects
the influence of Goldcorp and Canada within the country.374 As we demonstrate
below, Goldcorp has received considerable support from both the Canadian state
and Guatemalan government.
Despite the environmental dangers, indigenous peoples say they were never
consulted about the mine by original owner, Glamis Gold.375 Glamis, which was
subsequently bought out by Goldcorp, claimed it organized hundreds of consulta-
tion meetings in 2003 and 2004, but indigenous activists counter that the meetings
were really only promotional sessions that offered no opportunity for meaningful
consultation. A human rights assessment of Marlin commissioned by Goldcorp
itself states that, with respect to the matter of prior consultation, there “was a failure
to respect indigenous peoples’ rights.”376
Local communities have expressed serious concern about the use of cyanide
to leach out the gold (the mine contains as much as 225,000 ounces of gold).
Another worry is the roughly 760,000 litres of groundwater per minute consumed
in the regular functioning of the mine. Both practices threaten the sustainability of
farming on which local communities rely. The potentially toxic effects of large-scale
industrial mining are always considerable, but they have been compounded in this
case by the lackadaisical approach to basic environmental regulation adopted by
Glamis and Goldcorp. As Dougherty argues, a scientific examination of the Marlin
mine Impact Assessment found there are “major deficiencies in the environmental
design of the mine, including Glamis’s failure to line the tailings impoundment
pond with an impermeable liner.”377 A study by Physicians for Human Rights not
surprisingly finds that “people living closer to the mining site had significantly
higher concentrations of arsenic in their urine,” and that “one out of five par-
ticipants [in their study] indicate skin-related problems.”378 Scientific researchers
from Ghent University, meanwhile, conclude that there has been “an enourmous
increase in concentrations of many elements, including arsenic,” and that “arsenic
concentrations in some groundwater wells around the nearby Marlin mine fall far
above the who [World Health Organization] and North-American and Canadian
health standards for drinking water.” The Ghent researchers also argue that “shal-
low surface groundwater is disappearing.”379 The Association for the Integrated
Development of San Miguel (adismi) identifies the problem of water levels due
to Marlin as well, complaining that ten wells in the area have dried up.380 adismi
has also documented death of cattle on nearby farms after they drank from a creek
flowing beneath the Marlin mine. One farmer says this is the first time this has
happened in his thirty-five years of farming.381
Another study, conducted in 2011 by two economists for the Global
Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University in the U.S., argues
that the environmental costs will be much greater than any economic benefits from
the mine. This is the result of Guatemala’s low royalty rates, the money from which
goes to the national government and is not guaranteed to the local community;
an environmental risk that is “exceptionally high and likely to increase over the
remaining life of the mine and in the post-closure phase”; and the mine “contribut-
ing little to long term sustainable development.”382 Goldcorp has provided a C$1
million surety bond to the Guatemalan government for the cleanup of the Marlin
mine, nominally as a guarantee that it will close the mine in an environmentally
responsible way, but one study suggests that the real cost of the mine closure will be
closer to C$49 million.383 It is is not just the health of residents being jeopardized,
however. According to residents of nearby communities, dynamite explosions at
the mine have led to cracks in the structures of their homes.
Goldcorp has even been fined a number of times by marn, including for
a cyanide spill on the Pan-American highway near the Marlin Mine and for
lacking a proper licence to import cyanide. The marn temporarily prohibited
Goldcorp from importing cyanide until it paid the fine, a directive which the
company straightforwardly ignored. In the fall of 2010, Goldcorp was accussed
by Guatemala’s Environmental Management Unit of the unauthorized discharge
of toxic water from its tailings pond into a nearby river, which it is only permitted
to do if the water being discharged is free from contamination. In response to the
accusations, the company took out paid advertisements declaring that the discharge
was supervised by public regulatory agencies. Environmentalists and people from
the impacted communities counter, however, that the company did not previously
advise the marn nor did it have a permit for the discharge. The fines, prohibitions,
and accusations have not changed the company’s behaviour, though, given the
fact that as one of the most important foreign investors in the country it has been
assured of the active support of the Canadian and Guatemalan states. Neither the
mem nor the Guatemalan government intervened in any of these cases to force
Goldcorp’s compliance with environmental regulations or penalize the company
for its legal transgressions.384
The buttressing of Goldcorp’s position within Guatemala through the direct
and indirect assistance provided by the Canadian state has been especially impor-
tant as controversy surrounding the mine has accelerated. Ongoing resistance by
indigenous activists has drawn unwanted international attention and criticism

of the mining giant and the Guatemalan government alike. In a report in early
2010, the International Labour Organization’s Committee of Experts “urge[d] the
Government to suspend the exploitation in question [the Marlin mine] until…
the prior consultation provided for in Article 15(2) of the Convention [relating
to indigenous peoples] can be carried out.”385 This call from the ilo was followed
on May 21 of that year by a Precautionary Measure issued by the Inter-American
Commission for Human Rights (iachr), of which both Canada and Guatemala
are members. The Commission calls on member states to adopt Precautionary
Measures to prevent what it identifies as potential human rights violations or
harms against people. The measure regarding Goldcorp included an order to
suspend the mine’s operations, the concession for which, “was issued and mining
begun without the prior, complete, free, and informed consultation of the affected
communities of the Maya people.”386 The measure also noted that serious claims
regarding human rights violations and contamination of local water supplies had
not been addressed. Although keen to support iachr decisions when it suits its
interests—for example, when the leftist Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez
was the subject of criticism—the Canadian government has been silent regard-
ing the international legal condemnations of Goldcorp’s activities in Guatemala.
We met with Javier de León, a leading member of adismi, in July 2012, and
he told us “that the exploitation of gold and silver in San Miguel Ixtahuacán is an
exploitation of the patrimony of the Mam people in a way that…it is occurring
without a license from the Mam people of San Miguel because a consultation
process was not carried out in any way.” Echoing the position of the ilo, de León
insisted that “in no way did the Guatemalan carry out the consultation according
to how it should in order to see if the communities were or were not in agreement
with the extraction of gold and silver.”387
The concerns of the iachr, as well as those of the ilo, were ignored by both
Goldcorp and the Guatemalan government and thus the Marlin mine continued
to operate freely. Goldcorp kept to its script, arguing that despite all evidence to
the contrary there were no ecological repercussions flowing from the operations
of Marlin site. “The Guatemalan government’s testing and extensive Company
monitoring,” Goldcorp insisted, “demonstrate that there is no evidence of adverse
impacts related to mining activity from the Marline mine.”388 As it turned out,
Goldcorp need not have fretted excessively about pressure from the iachr. Not
only was Marlin never shut down during the period in which the concerns raised
by the iachr were to have been investigated, but after drawing international atten-
tion to the controversies surrounding Marlin, the iachr subsequently revised its
position in late 2011. Following the release of new “evidence” by Goldcorp and the
Guatemalan government, iachr acquiesced, stating simply that Goldcorp needed
to ensure the quality of drinking water in the area. Banished in the new position
was the earlier and bolder iachr stance calling for the suspension of operations in
the mine.389 As Jennifer Moore from Mining Watch, a Canadian non-governmental
organization (ngo), argued in response to the revision:
It is unconvincing that the iachr would be satisfied with the evidence

that the company-sponsored water committee and Guatemalan govern-
ment have presented. The most recent hydro-geological study lauded by
the government does not resolve the question of whether the mine is
contaminating the local drinking water and its neutrality has been roundly
criticized by local authorities.390
Canadian manoeuvring is lurking in the background of the iachr’s decision

to revise the measure, and for Marlin ultimately not having been shutdown down
during the investigation. After the iachr announcement in May, fait and the
embassy moved quickly to assist both Guatemala and Goldcorp in their response.
They leaned on the Guatemalan government when it looked like it might tempo-
rarily close Marlin as per the precautionary measure. It also appears very likely
that they conducted behind the scenes networking at the iachr. The full extent
of the Canadian state’s role in the eventual revision of the precautionary measure
is not clear; there has been no media coverage of it (in Canada or elsewhere), and
pertinent documents obtained through Access to Information are heavily redacted.
But there was a flurry of meetings and correspondences between Canadian,
Goldcorp, and Guatemalan officials immediately after the precautionary measure
was announced, with Alexandra Bugailiskis, the Assistant Deputy Minister for
Latin America and the Caribbean, assuring a Goldcorp executive that “the embassy
of Canada in Guatemala City will be working closely with the Government of
Guatemala to encourage a comprehensive approach…so that Guatemalan authori-
ties are equipped with all of the required information to address concerns.”391 In
early June 2011, for example, the Canadian ambassador, Leeann McKechnie, met
with the Guatemalan Vice President, the Minister of Mines and Energy, and the
Minister of the Environment.392 Shortly after, Goldcorp met in Ottawa with the
Director General for Latin America and the Caribbean, James Lambert, Minister
of State for the Americas, Peter Kent, and the Minister for International Trade,
Peter Van Loan. The brief written for Van Loan includes as a talking point that the
government “understand[s] the very large investment made in the Marlin mine
and its importance to Goldcorp,” and that the “Embassy is monitoring this issue
closely on the ground.”393 Representatives of Canada’s Permanent Mission to the
Organization of American States (oas) in Washington also spoke informally to
iachr representatives in June according to communications between Ottawa,
the embassy, and the Mission. This is also noted in a communication between
Bugailiskis and a Goldcorp executive.394
The stakes were raised higher for Goldcorp when the Guatemalan government
announced on June 23 that it was initiating a process to temporarily close Marlin
in response to the iachr’s precautionary measure, despite President Colom stating
that the iachr’s concerns were unsubstantiated. Canadian officials may very well
have known about the decision before it was announced. At a minimum, it would be
unsurprising if they were cognizant of its real possibility given the close connections
between both Goldcorp—whose Marlin Mine is Guatemala’s largest export-
earnings source—and the embassy, and the Guatemalan government. As noted,
this more or less natural relationship of mutual interest among elites has no doubt
been strengthened through the pdac trips the embassy organizes for Guatemalan
politicians and technocrats in the mem. All of these factors together could go a
long way to explaining the flurry of communications with Guatemalan officials
mentioned above, and it may also be the reason that the Office of the Minister of
International Trade requested on June 18, with relatively short turnaround time,
that a letter be written for the Minister to sign to his Guatemalan counterpart, the
content of which has not been disclosed.395 But the announcement by the Colom
government certainly spawned another flurry of communications and meetings.
On June 24 embassy staff, including the ambassador, met a Goldcorp vice president
for the region to discuss Guatemala’s decision to temporarily close the mine.396
Also in late June, Lambert met again with a Goldcorp executive in Ottawa, and in
July at the request of fait the embassy drew up a list of “high level authorities” in
the Guatemalan government to contact, with whom Goldcorp is not already in
“constant communication.”397 While the details of the meetings are unclear, what
is evident is that despite initially stating it would seek Marlin’s temporary closure,
the Guatemalan government never actually carried out any action against the mine.
The meetings continued into the fall of 2010 as an October 25 iachr hearing
date for the complainants and the Guatemala government approached. On October
8, the new Director General for Latin America and Caribbean in fait, and former
ambassador to Honduras, Neil Reeder, met with Goldcorp.398 On October 12 the
embassy’s Senior Trade Commissioner, Sébastien Moffett, met with a Guatemalan
leader (who is not identified), while Alan Culham, the Canadian ambassador to
the oas, met with the head of the iachr.399 It appears from the communications
between Ottawa and the embassy that the Canadians were prepping Guatemalans
for the hearings, while Culham, perhaps more familiar with iachr process, deemed
it necessary to explain to fait and the embassy that the Canadians needed to be
vigilant in sustaining appearances in order not to be seen to be infringing upon
the iachr’s independence. The embassy subsequently reported to Ottawa that
the “official” iachr hearing “went well,” and was followed the same day by what it
describes as a second “non-official” meeting at the iachr, the information from

which is not disclosed.400 Meetings involving Canadian, Guatemalan, iachr, and
Goldcorp officials continued into 2011, until the measure had been sufficiently
watered down and the call for Marlin’s closure withdrawn.401
The litany of ties wedding the Canadian government to Goldcorp does not
end there. Indeed, although passed over entirely in the Canadian press, the array
of connections between the company and the Conservatives was further exposed
in a trip to Guatemala by Canadian officials organized by Goldcorp executives.
Among those present were Conservative mps Dean Allison, chair of the Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (scfaid), and
Dave Van Kesteren, also a member of the scfaid (and vocal defender of the 2009
coup against former Honduran President Manual Zelaya as a containment strat-
egy against Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez). Also participating in the delegation were
Liberal mp Massimo Pacetti and Independent mp Bruce Hyer. An email written
by former Liberal mp, Don Boudria—now in the employ of Goldcorp lobbyist
Hill and Knowlton—to a Conservative mp, which was leaked to Mining Watch in
August 2012, discusses Goldcorp Chairman Ian Telfer and Goldcorp VP Brent
Bergeron’s plans to host “a fascinating visit” to Guatemala, including travel in the
country by “Goldcorp aircraft.” The visit included a stopover at the Marlin site and
meetings with Guatemalan cabinet ministers. The chair of Guatemala’s Legislative
Commission, Edgar Cristiani, reported that discussions with the delegation would
include “different positions on mining, the experience of their country with mining,
royalty payments, as well as the issue of conflicts.”402
The trip was organized to commence several months after Bergeron testified
before the scfaid, where he brazenly declared that
In Guatemala, I would like to see them modernize their mining regula-

tions. That would add to the stability of the environment within which we
deal in Guatemala. Can I go as Goldcorp and start training the Ministry
of Energy and Mines? I can’t do that. The credibility behind that is not
right. However, I think it makes a lot of sense to have a government
institution come in to take our experience here in Canada—the Natural
Resources Canada in terms of their experience—and bring that experi-
ence to Guatemala.403
Thus Bergeron, even as he urged vigilance against any deterioration in Goldcorp’s

public image through a perception of overstretching its power in Guatemala, could
admit that he esteemed the Canadian government’s record of facilitating corporate
extraction of natural resources at home, and that it would be mutually beneficial
to all involved if the government were to more aggressively export these practices
abroad. This trip came, moreover, after the Pérez Molina government’s brief flirta-
tion with a constitutional change permitting the Guatemalan government to take
up to 40 percent ownership in new mining projects, discussed above. While the
proposal was withdrawn, it nevertheless spoke to the climate of instability for the
industry even in a country with a government that is generally viewed as having a
favourable disposition towards the interests of foreign capital.
Goldcorp: Cerro Blanco

Marlin, as we have suggested, has been at the cutting edge of the wave of new
Canadian mining projects. The field of Canadian investments has expanded rapidly
in the wake of its successes. Such expansion notably includes another Goldcorp
project, Cerro Blanco, a gold and silver property at the advanced exploration stage
in the southeastern province of Jutiapa. The Cerro Blanco initiative faces opposition
in both Guatemala and El Salvador, as it is located on the border. Critics point out
that the proposed development poses an environmental threat to the shared Lake
Güija and rivers in both countries. For Salvadorans, there is concern about seepage
of mine waste into the Lempa river, upon which 3 million depend for their agricul-
tural and livestock-raising activities. A study of Cerro Blanco by geochemistry and
hydrogeology professor at Ohio University, Dina Larios, warns that toxic waste
water from the mine could cause serious damage to the surrounding ecosystem.404
Skye/Hudbay: Fenix
The Fenix mine is another important example, located in the Maya Q’eqchi com-
munity of Las Nubes. Fenix has the potential to become one of the largest nickel
mines in the world. The history of the property stretches back to the Cold War
years of military dictatorship. Then-Canadian mining giant, inco, together with
the American company, Hanna Mining, formed exmibal in 1960, four years after
the military coup against Jacobo Árbenz. exmibal lobbied the military dictator-
ship, and eventually obtained a 365 square kilometer concession in 1965 on land
that had been identified for the agrarian reform proposed under Árbenz but which
was annuled following the coup. Maya Q’eqchi communities argue that they have
never conceded the land, nor were they consulted about the mining project. When
community resistance to inco grew in the 1970s, as Cold War geopolitical ten-
sions in the country intensified and ultimately led to civil war and the scorched
earth campaigns of the 1980s against indigenous communities, exmibal and the
Guatemalan government responded with repression. Death squads assassinated
opponents and issued death threats to others.405 But the repression of exmibal’s
opponents and the company’s close relationship with the dictatorship made it a
target of guerrilla forces until it ceased operations. exmibal returned to the country
after the war ended in the 1990s, and eventually sold the concession in 2004 to
Skye Resources, whose chief executive was a former director of inco.406 Skye kept
up the tradition of violence and dispossession when its efforts to reactivate Fenix
were met with opposition. Ultimately, unable to contain the negative international
criticism and fierce local opposition to Fenix, Hudbay – which purchased Skye in
2008 for C$460 million in order to obtain Fenix – sold the project in August 2011
to Cyprus-based equity investor Solway Group.407
Tahoe Resources/Goldcorp: El Escobal

El Escobal is a silver mining project in the advanced exploration stage. It is owned
by Tahoe Resources, which is headquartered in Nevada—likely so it can benefit
from the U.S. trade agreement with Guatemala—but whose major shareholder is
Goldcorp. With a total investment of C$406 million, El Escobal could soon make
Tahoe one of the largest silver producers in the world.408 Despite President and ceo
Kevin McArthur’s claim to a Gold conference that Escobal “is in a region that is
receptive to the mining industry,” three communities adjacent to the project have
voted overwhelmingly against it in community referenda. One resident in the
community of San Rafael Las Flores has resisted the company’s ongoing efforts
to get him to sell his land, despite it being completely fenced-in by the mine.409
Radius Gold: El Tambor

El Tambor is a gold and silver exploration project owned until recently by
Vancouver-based Radius Gold.410 The site is situated in El Carrizal, between the
municipalities of San Pedro Ayampuc and San José del Golfo. Starting in early
March 2012, people from both communities held protests at the entrance to the
mine, rejecting its presence altogether. Members of the Frente Norte del Área
Metropolitana (Northern Front of the Metropolitan Area), have aimed to halt
exploitation and force the company and government to hold a popular consul-
tation to decide El Tambor’s fate. Community members brought money and
cooking supplies to sustain the protesters at the mine entrance. One community
activist, Johana Morales, demonstrating an understanding of the devastating con-
sequences Canadian mining has already had in Guatemala and Central America
more broadly,411 noted her concerns about exploration at El Tambor being allowed
to proceed, “in the future, the mine could contaminate our water supply, which
could affect the health of our children, because of the chemicals they use to extract
the metals. This is why we are demanding that the project cease operations in our
communities.”412 Movement leaders have faced reprisals: security guards working
for Radius entered the community of San José del Golfo in early April and fired
shots in the air until they were physically detained by residents.
Repression intensified on June 13, 2012, when Telma Yolanda Oquelí Veliz was
almost killed for her activism against the mine. “She was on her way out of the camp
when her vehicle was cut-off by a car and a motorcycle and her would be assassin
shot three bullets at her,” reports Canadian journalist, Dawn Paley.
One of the bullets pierced her abdomen and remains lodged inside her, too
close to the spinal cord to be safely removed. Oquelí suffers ongoing pain
as a result of the shooting. Her attackers, who she thinks are connected
to the municipality of San José del Golfo and to the mining company,
have never been identified.
Miguel Díaz Morales, an eighty-three-year-old community resident who spent

numerous nights at the blockade, told Paley he was fighting for his “children, and
for our land, on which they were born.…We defend our land because we have the
right to do so. We’re free and we have the right to defend our lands.”413
In a visit with community residents in San José del Golfo in July 2012, we
were told repeatedly how peaceful and legal protests were met with repression
and intimidation. For example, Jorge López, a resident active in the anti-mining
resistance, explained how the struggle the community has been carrying out
has been “using legal means” such as “peaceful marches” only to be consistently
dismissed or ignored. “They have not wanted to reach a solution to this problem
because there have been attempts to talk with the Minister of Energy and Mines,
the Minister of the Environment, but they have just stood us up.” Instead of good
faith negotiation, López explains that they
have received threats, death threats, via telephone. Graffiti that indicates
a warning has been painted on the houses of those of us who identify as
being part of this struggle. Because there are no leaders. Here, we are one
for all, and all for one.414
“Look,” Antonio Reyes Romero, another anti-mining activist in the community

told us,
what we want is this. The answer is simple, but doing it is the difficult
part. What we want is for there to be no more mining exploitation.…
And in this case it is Radius from Canada doing the exploiting. So, the
government of Canada is not going to do it [stop Radius on its own].
But the people of Canada can do it. They can demand that the Canadian
government tells Radius not to come and bother Guatemala.415
Dialectics of Resistance and Militarization

Canadian mining expansion into Guatemala needs to be understood in the con-
text of the country’s transition toward a new model of accumulation, the growing
popular resistance and social polarization that this model has fostered domestically,
and the dramatic remilitarization of politics that the state and ruling class have
initiated as a way of maintaining control and reproducing the system as a whole in
conditions of growing instability. Canadian investment and geopolitical orienta-
tion toward Guatemala is deeply complicit in the devastating social consequences
flowing from these new configurations of power and oppression. If the post-war
dynamic of 1996–2003 was one of relative demilitarization, reduction of violence,
depoliticization of everyday life, and thoroughgoing defeat and disarticulation of
popular social movements and the organized Left, since 2003 a new cycle of class
struggle, with a heightening intensity coming both from above and below, has been
set decisively into motion.416
The political economy of this new conjuncture has been characterized by a
process of soaring bank profits; reconcentration of landownership in the country-
side in the hands of both foreign and national capitalists, including capital tied to
narco-trafficking; a turn toward capital intensive farming of sugar cane and African
palm; the construction of vast hydroelectric developments; mega-highway projects,
such as the Franja Transversal del Norte (a planned highway in the northwest of the
country of 330 kilometers which will traverse the departments of Huehuetengango,
Quiché, Alta Verapaz, and Izabal) and the Corredor Tecnológico de Guatemala
(Guatemalan Technological Corridor, which is conceived as an earthbound canal
connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific via a vast highway); and, most crucially, oil
and mining expansion.417 The new development strategy of the ruling class has
transformed the Guatemalan territory into a space of accumulation oriented toward
the interests of national and international capitals while simultaneously spiking
the severity of ecological damage, displacement of indigenous communities, and
the destruction of peasant economies. Other results have been increasing levels of
poverty, growing numbers of unemployed, underemployed, and informal proletar-
ians, and a surge in migrant labourers leaving the country for Mexico and the U.S.
as part of an array of complex survival strategies. All of these components together
have meant a concomitant uptick in social conflict.
Mario Godínez is a university professor and member of the Movimiento Nueva
República (New Republic Movement), which was in turn part of the Frente Amplio
(Broad Front) that ran on a Left ticket in the September 2011 elections against
the far-Right candidacy of Otto Pérez Molina of the Partido Patriota (Patriotic
Party). In a 2011 interview with the Uruguayan sociologist Raúl Zibechi, Godínez
succinctly captured the basic outlines of the new model of accumulation and the
violence integral to its character:
The expansion of the capitalist model is coming at us from two directions:

The growth of agribusiness, above all sugar cane and African palm, and the
expansion of mining, and the privatization of water that goes along with
it. At the same time, the country has been turned into a drug-trafficking
corridor from the south to the United States, with a huge dispute over
territory on the border between Guatemala and Mexico. All this creates
a complex scenario. The old oligarchies have entered into alliances with
drug traffickers and with transnationals. That annuls a state that was
already weak, both in terms of citizen’s rights and in terms of security. A
good part of the current violence is provoked by “guardias blancas,” as we
already have 60,000 private security forces and 15,000 police. In reality,
this so-called private security–legal or illegal–protects the mafias through
a process of re-militarizing the country.418
The fallout from these economic and political developments has been an inten-
sification of social discontent from the dispossessed, marginalized, and exploited
communities. If a new bloc of social movements has thus far been unable to consist-
ently project alternatives at the national level, there has nonetheless been fierce and
growing defensive resistance at local and regional levels, led by a renewed militancy
within Mayan indigenous communities. While the range of demands of new move-
ments is eclectic and diverse, the most impressive and impactful have been those
movements responding to the intertwined human dispossession and environmental
degradation involved in the capitalist exploitation of natural resources, including,
most centrally, mining, hydroelectric, and oil development projects.
In the five-year period stretching between 2005 and 2010 there were approxi-
mately 2,180 protests at the national level, with 242 in 2010 alone. The most
common were demonstrations (82), road blockades (53), sit-ins (27), building
occupations (15), and strikes (10). The most important protagonist and social
subject in this terrain of unrest, according to Guatemalan sociologist Simona
Violetta Yagenova, was the rural Mayan indigenous community.419 In 2011, spurred
by an electoral contest in which the extreme Right was set to win, the number of
protests expanded still further to 522. In 2012, an impressive 493 protests were
carried out, with the tactical repertoire unfolding as follows: demonstrations
(225), road blockades (90), building occupations (63), sit-ins (47), and strikes
(28). Geographically, the protests tend to be strongest in the western region of
the country, as well as in the capital, Guatemala City. However, in recent years the
relatively quiescent eastern region, including Zacapa, Jutiapa, Jalapa, and Santa
Rosa, has begun to experience processes of community resistance as new licenses
for exploration have been granted to multinational mining companies.420
The generalized, if still incipient, process of principally rural indigenous
resistance to the extractive industries has been met with an equally generalized
process of militarization from the state and aligned paramilitary forces.421 The
“accumulated violence” of genocidal war “wasn’t resolved by the peace accords,”
according to Godínez:
Now security has been privatized with an alliance among the criminal
groups that were active in the 1980s, formed by anti-communist sol-
diers and youths paid to destroy the popular movement. We call these
paramilitary groups “guardias blancas.” They didn’t disappear with the
accords. They acquired their own power, which now appears to be linked
to international gangs, the maras, who are linked to emigrants in the
United States and other Central American countries. There is a division
of labor: violent gangs are linked to drug sales at the retail level while the
trafficking is organized by the big cartels, such as the Sinaloa cartel in
Mexico, which has positioned itself in Guatemala. Guatemalan soldiers,
elite groups such as the kaibiles, along with Mexicans make up the Zeta
cartel. They were contracted by the cartel to take care of business.422
In the decade leading up to 2012 there were at least 120 reported assassina-
tions of activists resisting mining development in Guatemala.423 In her survey of
social conflicts in the country in 2012, Yagenova reports that over that year there
were seven assassinations of leaders in rural community activism, the massacre of
seven indigenous peasants by the military in Totonicapán at a road blockade, and
an attempted assassination of one more anti-mining activist leader.424
One can also chart with ease the formal militarization of Guatemalan politics
since the peace accords. In 1999, reforms recommended in the peace accords that
would have removed the military from responsibility for internal security were
narrowly defeated. That same year, the Guatemalan Republican Front (frg) won
the presidential elections. In spite of the fact that a civilian, Alfonso Portillo, took
the presidency, the party was founded by a former dictator, and General Efraín
Ríos Montt, responsible for massacres during the war, was re-elected to congress
and remained head of the frg.
In 2000, renewing the practice of internal security, the military returned to
active duty in police patrols, anti-narcotics activities, and the guarding of prisons.
In 2003, military forces began their renewed involvement in forcible evictions of
peasants from land occupations initiated by small peasants, including the removal
of eight hundred families in the Polochic Valley in 2011. By 2005, the armed forces
had become intensely implicated in the state coercion of anti-mining activism,
including the murder of one man the year after soldiers shot at a crowd protest-
ing the Canadian-owned Marlin mine. States of prevention and emergency were
declared at different intervals during the presidencies of Óscar Berger and Álvaro
Colom, during which military power was increased and basic constitutional
rights were restricted. These interventions were motivated, above all, by the state’s
desire to repress protests against mining and electricity projects. Under Colom, in
2009 the infamous Ixcán military base was reopened, a locale that saw over one
hundred massacres during the war, and is now the neighbour of a planned—and
contested—highway development.
In December 2010, the first state of siege (martial law) since the end of the war
was declared; followed by others in 2011 and 2012. While ostensibly motivated
by a need to control drug traffickers, the geographic perimeters of the zones
under martial law and the timing of the directives make it clear that these were
straightforwardly efforts by the state to clampdown on social protest through
unmitigated military presence and force. Perhaps the most powerful expression
of the remilitarization of Guatemalan politics, however, came with the September
2011 election of retired general Otto Pérez Molina, who was responsible for
overseeing the massacres of highland indigenous peasantries during the war.425
According to Godínez,
a zone of militarism is being reborn in regions where natural resources

are abundant and there are mega mining projects. That’s why we can say
that this is militarism at the service of big multinational firms.…We’re
facing a backwards shift towards dictatorship, even though there are
elections. In Guatemala they are trying out ways to protect investments
by neutralizing the state.426
Canadian mining companies are deeply and directly imbricated in these over-
arching dynamics.427 Indeed, the latest state of siege declared by the Pérez Molina
regime, on May 1, 2013, turned precisely on developments fifty miles southeast of
the capital city at Tahoe Resources El Escobal silver mine, one of the five largest
deposits of silver in the world, where hundreds of protests had been blocking roads
and engaging in other militant forms of direct action.428 Private security guards
employed by the company “shot and wounded several local residents on Saturday
[April 27, 2013] in San Rafael Las Flores, on the road” in front of the mine.429
Martial law was decreed by Pérez Molina for thirty days in four municipalities sur-
rounding the El Escobal mining project—Jalapa, Mataquescuintla, and Casillas, in
addition to San Rafael Las Flores. Freedom of movement, assembly, and protest,
and the basic constitutional rights of detainees and prisoners were suspended.
According to reports, Alberto Rotonda, the head of security at Tahoe’s mine, was
“overheard giving the order to shoot, among other comments and insults, while
some injured have stated that they saw him draw and fire a weapon as well.”430
Rotonda was arrested and charged with attempted homicide after he tried to flee
the country.
The latest state of siege comes in the wake of a long history of conflict over the
Tahoe operation. Tahoe representatives and the Guatemalan government “are
hostile towards us,” explained Oscar Morales García when we visited San Rafael
Las Flores in July 2012. Morales García is a member of the Local Committee in
Defence of Life, which has become an important participant leading the struggle
against Tahoe:
The mining company has filed complaints in the Attorney General’s office
against us for kidnapping, terrorism, and coercion. We have been accused
of crimes. And this is only because we want to have a consultation in the
municipality. We have received death threats. And they don’t even have
the courage to do it themselves face to face. They send someone to say,
“hey, they’re going to kill you.”431
The company’s obstinance towards the local communities has sparked a series
of direct actions in response, including a mobilization of more than four hundred
people to block the entrance to the project in January, 2012. On September 17,
2012 a transport truck carrying tubes and electrical cables along the main high-
way toward the mine was intercepted by community residents who confiscated
the materials. The next day, deposits from the mine were burned up along with a
transport vehicle. Two months later, when authorities attempted to hold a forum
in the community of Mataquescuintla, enraged community residents burned
down a hotel and looted dynamite from the mine.432 Amadeo de Jesus Rodríguez
Aguilar has been a leading activist in the Local Committee in Defence of Life,
prompting a spurious Tahoe claim that he kidnapped their security personnel after
he peacefully disrupted a meeting of shareholders who were visiting the area from
North America. He wanted to challenge the rosy picture of the mine’s popularity
painted by Kevin McArthur, former president of Goldcorp and founder of Tahoe
Resources in 2010, but the company used the incident to incite a clampdown on
the activities of opponents, knowing full well that the government and its security
apparatus are strong sympathizers with the Canadian mining industry.433 “Tahoe’s
silver, minerals and gold in San Rafael are now stained with blood,” notes Morales
García. “It may be true that the government authorized an exploitation license, but
what would be called a social license for Minera San Rafael doesn’t exist here. It
doesn’t exist and it never will.”434
The expansion of Canadian mining capital into Guatemala in the 2000s has
been constitutive of the latest cycle of class struggle centred in the Guatemalan
countryside.435 Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the case of the Marlin
mine. As Marlin went into production, and inspired the rapid growth of explora-
tion, without consultation with local communities, the anti-mining movement
picked up steam and spread. Between 2005 and 2008, for example, within the wider
array of social movement activities there were 1,482 protests specifically related to
opposition to mining.436 The bulk of the movement is comprised of small farmers
from poor indigenous communities organized to defend their land and ecologies.
One of the more militant and grassroots organizations formed to resist the mining
industry, the Consejo de los Pueblos de Occidente (Council of the Peoples of the
West), is fighting dispossession under the slogan of “In Defence of the Territory.”437
It is devoted to community-based direct action, rather than spending its time lob-
bying the government and mining corporations, or focusing principally on legal
challenges through the courts.438
The ongoing support Goldcorp receives from the Canadian state has translated
into virtual impunity surrounding its practices vis-à-vis the Guatemalan govern-
ment. It has been the mining-affected indigenous communities themselves that
have organized against and directly challenged the company. Opponents have
engaged in a variety of actions against the mine to try and physically stop it from
moving ahead—often at great personal risk. Beginning in December 2004, pro-
testers blocked a convoy of mining equipment destined for Marlin for forty-two
days. The blockade ended when police, under orders from then-President Oscar
Berger, attacked it, firing on protesters. One protester, Raúl Castro Bocel, was shot
and killed, and dozens more were injured. In January 2005, a local Bishop led an
anti-mine protest of three thousand people in the provincial capital, and has sub-
sequently faced death threats as a result. The initial blockade and state response
led to the formation of the Regional Council of Indigenous Authorities of the
Western Highlands, which demanded respect for the indigenous communities’
territories; prior consultation with indigenous communities before any mining
projects commence, including exploration; and an end to criminalization.439 These
organizations of resistance persisted in the face of ongoing repression. In March
2005, for example, local resident Álvaro Sánchez was shot dead in the street walk-
ing home from a bar by a security guard working for Glamis. That same month,
a vehicle belonging to an indigenous leader was torched, and he and two other
anti-mine activists received death threats.440
In January 2007, representatives from communities opposed to the Marlin Mine
submitted a petition to the company listing their grievances. Their complaint was
dismissed by the company and, according to the community representatives, the
activists were insulted by company officials. On their way home from the company
offices, the community members were attacked by Goldcorp security. Rocks
were thrown at them, guns were fired, and security tried to force one person into
a car. The activists managed to defend themselves, but when they reported the
incident to police no action was taken on their behalf. After learning of Goldcorp’s
response to the petition, roughly six hundred people from towns that neighbour
the Marlin mine gathered that same day and began to blockade the roads to the
company’ installations. The National Civil Police’s riot squad was called, and was
soon joined by upwards of five hundred Guatemalan soldiers. Despite the state’s
aggressive show of force, the blockades were held for more than ten days, forcing
the company to agree to negotiations. But as soon as the blockades were lifted the
company declared it was no longer going to negotiate, and instead initiated penal
charges against twenty-two local residents. Seven of those people had arrest war-
rants issued against them, and, according to some community activists, Goldcorp
urged the Guatemalan government to lay charges against them.441 Two community
leaders were violently detained by National Civil Police officers—transported in
Goldcorp vehicles—at their home in the early morning hours. However, in a rare
positive turn of events, which speaks to how outrageous the charges were, the
judges overseeing the trial eventually acquitted five of the seven and put the other
two on probation and levied US$500 fines.442
Despite Goldcorp’s heavy-handed approach to defending its investment,
opposition to the project did not subside. In 2007, anti-mining activists in the
municipality of Sipakapense spread their resistance to the electoral arena, compet-
ing in municipal elections through the Comité Cívico Sipakapense (Sipakapense
Civic Committee). Led by an anti-mining activist, their “No to Mining” mandate
proved popular and they defeated the well-funded pro-mining candidates. While
intimidation of mining opponents did not stop, the persistence and popularity
of the resistance forced Goldcorp to shift tactics slightly and more aggressively
dangle their pro-mining carrots in the region. The company opened offices in five
different communities and offered cash to residents for household or community
projects. To counter the results of damning environmental studies conducted by
multidisciplinary teams of scientists on the hazardous contaminating impact of the
mine on local water supplies, the company financed an “independent” water analy-
sis by a front organization called the Communitarian Environmental Monitoring
Organization, which unsurprisingly found no contamination downstream from the
mine.443 Goldcorp also paid lobbyists to go door-to-door to promote mining and
encourage people to sell their land. Taking advantage of the poverty in the region,
Goldcorp managed to purchase the loyalty of some residents through financial
assistance or job offers, and has used this to claim they have community support
and to drive a wedge into the communities.444
“Goldcorp insisted that the mine improved local welfare, since 64 percent of
the 1,900 people working in the Marlin mine were said to be from San Miguel
and Sipakapa,” notes sociologist Leire Urkidi. “However, increased alcoholism,
prostitution and rape, division among people, and the criminalization of resistance
were other social impacts that were mentioned in the area.”445 This view was born
out by Florencio Yoc, a community anti-mining activist we spoke to in July 2012.
“So, that’s the problem here in San Miguel,” Yoc told us, “the Marlin mine company
only comes to create more division among families.”446
In spite of obstacles created through repression at the hands of private security
and the Guatemalan army, as well efforts at cooptation through petty handouts
on the part of Goldcorp, the resistance continued to grow. “Led by the priest and
some local authorities,” the sociologist Leire Urkidi explains,
the resistance to mining spread through Sipakapa’s communities. Several

leaders from Sipakapa visited other mining areas in Central America,
such as Valle de Siria in Honduras, and engaged in regional networks
against mining. The Central American Anti-Mining Network was a key
information and discourse source for Guatemala’s incipient movement.447
In June 2008, Gregoria Pérez, a local Mayan farmer opposed to Marlin, inten-
tionally damaged a power line Goldcorp runs across her property to feed its mill.
When Goldcorp employees went to fix the line they were blocked by anti-Marlin
activists. As the fight over the powerline, and the mine more generally, continued
in July, Secretary of State (Foreign Affairs and International Trade) Helen Guergis
visited Guatemala where she met with representatives of Canadian investors. The
press release announcing her visit describes Guatemala as an important partner
of Canada in the region.448
A year later, in June 2009, after its efforts to purchase land from residents failed,
Goldcorp illegally brought exploration equipment and vehicles onto community
and private property of the Mayan Mam population of Sacmuj in the village of Ágel.
After receiving complaints from local residents, Goldcorp signed an agreement
to withdraw its equipment, vehicles, and workers on June 12. At the same time,
Goldcorp requested and received a police and army presence, along with private
company security, to protect its workers. When the company failed to uphold
the agreement, exploration equipment and a vehicle were burned.449 Tensions
continued to mount after that incident, including an attempt to assassinate four
community leaders in San Miguel Ixtahuacan in August 2009, when a truck tried
to run them over while they were walking along a road near the adismi offices
in Máquivil.450 On July 7, 2010 in Ágel, San Miguel Ixtahuacán, an opposition
activist was badly wounded after being shot in the head in her home. The attack
came after she had received several threats for her participation in anti-Goldcorp
movement. Around the time of this shooting, several other activists were run off
of local roads by cars.451 Then, the following September, Goldcorp again attempted
to enter Sacmuj in order to expand its operations in the region.452
In San José Nueva Esperanza we spoke to Diadora Hernández, a leading Mayan

peasant opponent of the Marlin mine who was shot in the face in early 2012. She
now has a prosthetic eye and has lost hearing in her right ear. “I would like the
company to leave,” Hernández said,
because now there are going to be more problems because they started
to explore here below my land. And they [the family on the land below
hers] have not planted corn, and the rumour is that they are going to sell
[their land to the Goldcorp]…there is no tranquillity. I am sad.
Hernández has not been silenced, however, maintaining her role in the strug-
gle and appealing to the government to act in the interests of the community, and
against the mine, out of conscience:
And what is the government going to do? Is it going to sell us to the mine?
And us? What are we going to do?…I always thought it would be better
for me to go talk to the government. Why don’t they listen to us?453
As in the cases of Tahoe and Goldcorp, Skye Resources has also been a Canadian
subject of anti-mining resistance in Guatemala, as well as the source of state and
paramilitary repression of popular movements. Skye’s mining permit covered land
that includes seventeen Maya Q’eqchi communities. In early 2007, five communities
in the area were violently evicted by several hundred military, police, and company
security. In Lote 8, armed forces shot tear gas at residents, who fled into the forest
as their homes and crops were destroyed. When residents returned over the next
week to start rebuilding, the various armed forces came back and destroyed one
hundred make-shift huts and, while laying siege to the community, soldiers, police,
and company security gang-raped at least five women.454 The original eviction at
Lote 8 was partly captured on film by Canadian doctoral student Steven Schnoor.
Schnoor’s video includes a woman protesting her eviction and still shots of the
violent expulsions. When questioned about the video and violent evictions by
the ngo Breaking the Silence, Canadian ambassador, Kenneth Cook, resorted
to attacking Schnoor’s character with wild claims that the footage was fake: the
woman in the video, he insisted, was an actor and the still shots were taken during
the civil war in the 1980s. When his effort to get a retraction and apology from
Cook and Foreign Affairs failed, Schnoor successfully sued them for damages, the
Canadian judge finding that Cook’s comments were “defamatory” and “reckless.”455
Feeling pressure from the indigenous communities and growing international
attention as a result of the violence, Skye Resources sold the project to Hudbay
Minerals in 2008. But neither the resistance nor the violence abated. In late
September 2009, violence and intimidation escalated against residents of Las
Nubes, leading to the assassination of one Hudbay opponent. In the same period,
Hudbay security forces along with police and, according to community members,
paramilitary forces visited Las Nubes and told residents to leave, destroyed a com-
munity structure, and fired live ammunition at residents. Then on September 29,
security forces attacked a blockade set up in front of the Hudbay complex, several
protesters were badly injured, and Adolfo Ich Chub, a Maya Q’eqchi teacher
from nearby La Union who had two weeks earlier denounced the Fenix mine in
a public meeting, was kidnapped and then hacked to death by Hudbay security.
Several hours later, in the early hours of September 30, a mini-bus carrying Maya
Q’eqchi leaders was machine-gunned, leaving several people severely injured. One
of those wounded, Pablo Bac, whose father organized against exmibal until he
was disappeared in 1981, suffered ongoing health complications and died the fol-
lowing March.456 Hudbay responded to the bloodshed by arguing that its security
“showed great restraint and acted only in self defense.”457
This was self-evidently a message to mining opponents that mining interests
are willing to employ terror strategies echoing the days of Guatemala’s civil war.
Apparently without irony, the Mining Association of Canada (mac) awarded
Hudbay with its 2009 “Towards Sustainable Mining” award, which was presented to
the company on Parliament Hill during mac’s annual “Mining Day on the Hill.”458
Popular opposition persisted all the same, and in early 2011 Hudbay suffered a
rare legal setback when the Constitutional Court of Guatemala agreed with one
community in the permit area, Lote 9, that it had collective rights to its lands and
the government must issue it a land title.459 At the same time, negligence lawsuits
were being brought against Hudbay in a Toronto court by the sexual assault victims,
the widow of Adolfo Ich, and another community member, German Choc, who
was shot and paralyzed by security forces.460
In a throwback to Cold War ideology, it is commonplace for the mining corpora-
tions and the Guatemalan state to dismiss anti-mining protests as the phenomena
of a discredited minority, little more than malcontents who have been incited
by outside agitators, often international environmental ngos. One of the more
effective forms of rebutting this dismissal has been the grassroots organization of
dozens of community referenda, or consultations, in which community members
have been able to voice their views. Since 2005, at least sixty such consultations
have been held, with Guatemalans voting decisively against future mining pro-
jects taking place in their communities. Over seven hundred thousand people,
in a country of 14 million, have participated in municipal referenda and said no
to mining.461 In one particularly telling indication of the explicit support enjoyed
by the anti-mining movement, in the department of Huehuetenango, where the
most exploration licences are to be found, all municipalities except for the capital
have voted resoundingly against mining projects, with high levels of participation
in the consultations.462 On one level, these referenda are based on Convention

169 of the International Labour Organization (ilo), which requires that prior
to the implementation of legal measures or developmental projects that could
impact indigenous peoples the signatory state must carry out consultations “with
the objective of achieving agreement or consent to the proposed measures.”
Convention 169 also requires that “relocation shall take place only with their free
and informed consent.”463
On another deeper level, the consultations are rooted in activist efforts in often
impoverished and historically oppressed indigenous communities to renew a sense
of grassroots democratic participation, self-organization, and governance over the
lives of their communities and the critical economic activities that will shape them.
“We think that one main principle of the movement of consultations is that the
means cannot be separated from the ends,” said one representative of the Council
of the Peoples of the West:
We truly think that this is one distinctive characteristic of communitarian

consultations.…We think that the first step is to organize ourselves and
protest against the existing order, against the transnational consortium,
against economic and sexual exploitation, against racism, etc. But to
organize ourselves in a manner where the means are consistent with the
ends, and where we could create the desired future human relationships.
It means to organize ourselves without a centralized authority, without
charismatic leadership, in a manner where we could create the ideal
egalitarian society of the future.464
The response of both the mining industry and the Guatemalan state to these
initiatives has been to dismiss or ignore them altogether. In June 2005, the com-
munity of Sipakapa organized the country’s first community referendum on the
Marlin project, and the mine was rejected by 98 percent of voters. Glamis ignored
the results.465 Guatemala’s Constitutional Court ruled that the referendum against
the Marlin Mine was unconstitutional and therefore was not binding on mining
companies or the government. To many, this is seen as a flagrant violation of indig-
enous rights as expressed in international law, to which the Guatemalan state is a
party. The ilo’s Committee of Experts, discussed above in relation to the Marlin
mine, has specifically targeted Guatemala’s mining regime for criticism due to its
systematic violation of indigenous rights. The ilo has called on the Guatemalan
government to “neither grant nor renew any licence for the exploration and exploi-
tation of natural resources…while the participation and consultation provided for
by the convention are not being carried out.”466
Conclusion
“I was recently in Canada and was very clear with people there that the problem
is not Canadian society,” Morales García told us when we spoke to him in San
Rafael Las Flores about his involvement in the resistance to Tahoe Resources and
Goldcorp:
The problem is that these people, these companies, these players come
to set up shop here. I don’t have any problem with Canadian society.…
On the contrary, we’re friendly and we are peaceful. Our problem has
a first and last name and that is Tahoe Resources and it is Goldcorp.467
These sentiments capture a generalized pattern of the way in which indig-

enous communities in Guatemala have been drawn into a series of unsolicited
confrontations with Canadian mining capital, all of which are occurring within
a wider panorama of expanding extractive industrial activity under the guise of
multinational corporations.
This chapter has sought to contextualize Canadian mining expansion against
the historical backdrop of Guatemala’s civil war, peace accords, and transition to a
new model of accumulation and violence during the neoliberal period. At the same
time, it has sought to emphasize the agency of rural indigenous social movements,
fighting on the frontlines against the depredation of their communities proceeding
rapidly in the interest of those extracting vast quantities of bullion for the few. These
communities defy easy parables of passive victims, even if their movements are
up against very real and structurally powerful external and domestic opponents—
opponents clearly willing, as we have illustrated, to employ their asymmetrical
strengths in military and paramilitary terms to win the day. After having mapped
out the key pieces of Honduras and Guatemala in the story of Canadian imperialism
and the popular resistance it is generating in the Central American corridor, the next
chapter will tie up the final Central American threads through a close examination
of the patterns of Canadian capital and popular struggle in the rest of the isthmus.
Chapter 4
Dispossession and Security

in Central America
W hile the cases of Honduras and Guatemala, explored at length in previous chap-
ters, are perhaps on the harshest pole of Canadian imperialist intervention in
Central America in recent years, the basic patterns established in those countries are
nonetheless observable in their essential parameters more broadly through the rest
of the region. In this chapter, we systematically document the record of Canadian
economic interests and diplomatic efforts in El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua,
and Panama over the neoliberal period, while situating this involvement against
the backdrop of each country’s historical development and the rhythms of resist-
ance that encounter Canadian imperialism at every step. After the interrogation of
these four cases, we sketch out the content and logic of Canada’s security strategy
in Central America as a whole, showing how it flows immediately from the mate-
rial interests of Canadian capital, as well as being connected to the medium- and
long-term geopolitical strategies of the Canadian state in the region.
El Salvador
El Salvador’s twelve-year civil war came to a close in 1992 through a negotiated
peace settlement, borne in part out of a military stalemate between the anti-commu-
nist, authoritarian regime and the mass guerrilla movement of the Frente Farabundo
Martí para la Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front,
fmln). The fmln was transformed into an electoral political party and the Right
found its principal expression in the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (Nationalist
Republican Party, arena), which was originally formed in 1981. The source of
119
guerrilla insurgency can be located in the fact that a landed oligarchy rooted in
coffee and sugar exports—the infamous “fourteen families”—controlled the bulk
of the country for much of the twentieth century, both economically and politi-
cally. The poor were exploited or marginalized, and when they refused to bow their
heads any longer and organized popular movements at different moments in the
country’s modern history, the oligarchy responded by unleashing the military forces
of the state in waves of terrific violence. The fmln’s eventual call-to-arms, and the
considerable support it received from layers of the peasant and urban working
class population, were indicators of the unbearable character of that scenario.468
Unfortunately, the transition to peace did not witness a simultaneous break with
neoliberal economics—indeed neoliberal policies were intensified—and economic
inequality and social exclusion persist to this day on a grand scale. Authoritarian
legacies have likewise lived on in the form of human rights violations by the Policía
Nacional Civil (National Civil Police, pnc), which replaced the militarized secu-
rity forces. In the years since the peace accords, the pnc has been linked to crime
syndicates, torture rings that brutalize detainees, enduring death squads that have
targeted vulnerable urban youth in “social cleansing” campaigns orchestrated under
a veneer of a war against gangs, and a mano dura (iron fist) approach to fighting
crime on the part of the state—all of this in a context of heightened generalized
violence across society, making post-war El Salvador one of the most violent places
in Latin America and the Caribbean.469
Part of the intensification of neoliberalism is explained by the shifting fates of
different sectors of the Salvadoran capitalist class over the course of the civil war,
and their attendant effects on the political inclinations of these sectors. The civil war
had the effect over time of damaging national economic output and precipitating
capital flight. The traditional agro-export sector began to decline in importance.
Partly in response to this decline in traditional sectors, neoliberal reforms of trade
liberalization and privatization of state-owned enterprises beginning in the late
1980s and early 1990s attempted to shift the model of accumulation toward non-
traditional agricultural exports, and new commercial and service sector activities.
As a consequence, novel domestic “economic power groups” emerged in alliance
with foreign capital, which had been attracted through privatization initiatives.470
When it became obvious that the armed forces could not defeat the fmln
militarily, and that attracting further investment from transnational corporations
was being impeded by the instability of prolonged warfare, these emergent sectors
of the capitalist class sought to use arena as a medium through which to build a
conservative coalition, led by business forces that would be able to forge a transi-
tion to peace on capital’s terms. The establishment of the arena government of
Alfredo Cristiani (1989–1994) expressed the success of this new orientation on
the part of rising business sectors and allowed the peace process to move ahead and
Dispossession And Security In Central America 121
reach its close in 1992. arena, governing a political system that sociologist Sonja
Wolf has called “electoral authoritarianism,”471 managed to secure victories in the
1994, 1999, and 2004 presidential elections, setting in place the administrations
of Armando Calderón Sol (1994–1999), Francisco Flores Pérez (1999–2004),
and Antonio Saca (2004–2009). Under the arena regimes, the neoliberal
process of privatization and liberalization accelerated, with the new emergent
business sectors consolidating their recently acquired power, at the same time as
some of the traditional oligarchic families reproduced their economic weight by
shifting strategically from agro-exports into commerce, construction, and some
service sectors, all in alliance with a growing presence of foreign investment by
transnational giants.472 During the Flores Pérez administration, the U.S.-Central
American Free Trade Agreement (U.S.–cafta) was signed, concretizing a secure
investment environment for foreign capital in the country, despite fierce opposi-
tion from popular movements such as the Movimiento Popular de Resistencia-12
de octubre (Popular Movement of Resistance – October 12) and the Red Sinti
Techán (Sinti Techán Network).473
As part of the externally-influenced trend in Central America to create better
conditions for foreign investors, a new mining law was written in El Salvador in
1995 to replace the previous one, which had been in force since 1922. The new
law included a low royalty rate of 3 percent of net profits. Coming out of the civil
war and facing the harsh realites of the neoliberal global order, the Salvadoran
government cited the need to be competitive with its neighbours to justify such
a low rate, which in turn led Guatemala to reduce its rate from 6 to 1 percent as
the countries drove down demands on foreign capital. In response to Guatemala’s
reduction, and the Honduran mining law passed following Hurricane Mitch, which
replaced royalties with a 1 percent tax, El Salvador reformed its 1995 law in 2001.
After heated debate in its legislature, a new 2 percent rate was adopted—though
as we discuss below, mining policy would soon become a focus of national debate
as Canadian companies made their move on the tiny country.474
Total Canadian fdi into El Salvador is not publicly disclosed, but it is oriented
towards mining and banking. Of the active multinational mining companies
in El Salvador in the early twenty-first century, the three most important were
Canadian: Intrepid Minerals, Aura Silver Resources, and Pacific Rim Mining
(Pacific Rim was sold to an Australian company in 2013). Scotiabank bought
Banco de Comercio in 2007 for US$170 million and is one of the largest banks
in the country.475 There is also a small maquila presence and the recent entry
of Bell and Telus in the telecommunications sector. El Salvador was a part of
Canada’s fta negotiations with the so-called Central American Four (ca4), but,
as discussed in the previous chapter, those negotiations stalled and Canada suc-
cessfully singled out Honduras after the coup with the hopes that the remaining
three countries would feel pressure to push ahead on Canada’s preferred terms
now that their neighbour had done so.
As elsewhere in Central America, however, community resistance has posed a
significant challenge to Canadian capital’s ambitions in the country. The potential
damage to the country’s limited fresh water supply from large-scale mining has
inspired a broad opposition to mining in general and Canadian companies in par-
ticular, including protests targeting the Canadian embassy, which express a clear
link in the minds of protesters between Canadian companies and the Canadian
government.476 Canadian mining activity has been linked repeatedly to devastating
environmental fallout in the country.477
Far and away the most notorious Canadian company in El Salvador in the early
2000s was Pacific Rim, which owned three exploration properties in the country.
Pacific Rim established an American subsidiary in 2007 in order to take advantage
of the U.S. trade agreement with El Salvador, the U.S.-Central American Free
Trade Agreement (U.S.-cafta, including also Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua
and the Dominican Republic). It bought the El Dorado property, a gold and silver
deposit located one hundred kilometres from the capital in the village of San Isidro,
Cabañas in 2002. Considered Pacific Rim’s flasghip operation, initial studies by the
company suggested the mine, which is part of a fifty-kilometre-long gold seam that
snakes through Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua could be worth as much as
US$3.3 billion. The company was granted an exploration permit in 2005.478 After
exploration commenced, representatives of the company began a campaign to get
local farmers to sell or lease their land. Local residents report that the company
even claimed in community meetings that cyanide is perfectly safe in drinking
water. One resident notes that, “the company thought we’re just ignorant farmers
with big hats who don’t what we’re doing.”479
But Pacific Rim faced opposition to its project almost immediately, including
from communities in Cabañas, environmental ngos, and the Catholic Church. The
deposit is situated close to the Río Lempa, a crucial source of water to Cabañas
and San Salvador. Residents are concerned about the potential contamination of
a vital water supply from mercury, cyanide, arsenic, and zinc, heightened by the
fact that there has been no independent assessment of the environmental impact
of El Dorado—all while Pacific Rim, under the extant mining policy, would have
paid a mere 2 percent in royalties per ounce of gold mined.480 The mine would
also consume, according to one scientific study, between 75 and 110 litres of
water per second from the nearby San Francisco river, in a country that already is
facing considerable shortages and is, according to a Human Development Report
for Latin America, the third most unequal country in the region with respect to
access to potable water.481
Facing an election, pressure was felt by conservative National Republican
Alliance (arena) president, Elías Saca González, as opposition to both El Dorado

and large-scale mining grew, including among ranchers, who traditionally support
the right-wing party, when the springs they rely on began drying up as Pacific Rim
conducted exploratory drilling. Saca publicly raised concerns about the mine in
early 2009 and declared that no new permits would be granted to Pacific Rim,
despite his party generally being supportive of foreign mining. Twenty-four mining
concessions, including El Dorado, had also been suspended by the government
as an updated mining law, nominally introduced in response to environmental
concerns about large-scale mining, was debated in the Congress.482
Like most other Canadian mining companies, Pacific Rim deployed a csr
campaign in an effort to win over sections of local communities. It has sponsored a
number of “social responsibility” initiatives in Cabañas as part of its “green mining”
campaign. However, it was unable to successfully buy off the local communities,
and some activists accused it of giving the csr money to selected local mayors
more inclined to support it as a way of pushing El Dorado forward. As one activist
working with a community radio station observed, “it is a way for the company to
control the mayors.”483
But behind the csr dollars and platitudes was a campaign of terror waged
against anti-mining activists.484 This campaign included possibly five assassina-
tions between June 2009 and July 2011, as well as shootings, assaults, kidnapping,
and death threats.485 For example, in June 2009, an anti-mining activist and fmln
militant, Marcelo Rivera, was kidnapped, tortured, and strangled to death in San
Isidro, his body later found at the base of a well. Police offered the easy and familiar
suggestion that the culprits were gang bangers. In July of that year, another move-
ment activist, Father Luis Quintanilla, was threatened by men wearing ski masks
after having received death threats over the phone. A couple of weeks later, Ramiro
Rivera, a key organizer in anti-mining road blockades received eight gun shots in the
back and legs.486 Yet another collective target was a local community radio station,
Radio Victoria, which has given voice to the anti-mining movement. Several staff
at the radio station were threatened with murder.487 “We’ve had to move people
from their houses in the middle of the night,” reports Óscar Beltrán, a journalist
with Radio Victoria. “I believe that they haven’t succeeded in carrying out an attack
yet because we’ve acted before they could do it. If we hadn’t acted quickly, I think
we would be mourning at least five colleagues by now.”488
Pacific Rim insists it bears no responsibility for what is clearly a concerted and
organized terror campaign, and that it has been unfairly subject to “false accusations
made by certain anti-mining groups.”489 The company and Salvadoran police even
went so far as to suggest these were incidents of a non-political nature unrelated
to mining (in one case a drunken brawl that got out of hand, for example); how-
ever, the fact that the victims’ bodies showed signs of torture, and that there were
possibly five anti-mining activists murdered within the region in a two-and-a-half

year span, stretches the credulity of claims that this is mere coincidence. Some
local organizers accuse the arena mayors who presided over the Pacific-Rim-
financed csr fiefdom of ordering or giving the okay for the assassinations and
raids on their organizations, and according to reports from community activists
one of the persons identified in the shooting of a mining opponent is an associate
of arena mayors in the region and worked as a paid promoter for the company.490
But even if Pacific Rim cannot be directly linked to the terror campaign, it is clear
that its opponents are being systematically targeted, and at the very least it must
bear some responsibility as the violence is a result of its controversial and strongly
contested presence.
Systematic repression has not been the only threat against local Salvadoran
communities. The violence has been matched by a legal assault on the country;
one that has been difficult to take lightly given El Salvador’s status as one of the
poorer states in Latin America and the Caribbean. As noted above, in the face of
widespread opposition, the Salvadoran government did not grant the company
further exploration or exploitation licenses. In response, Pacific Rim initiated
arbitration proceedings against the government in 2010 at the International Centre
for Settlement of Investment Disputes (icsid) at the World Bank for more than
US$100 million in damages, including for the loss of future profits, arguing that
the government breached the terms of the cafta and its own investment laws.491
The World Bank, it should be noted, as part of its development objectives offers
financing to mining projects, and so can hardly be called a neutral arbiter. While
icsid declared that the lawsuit could not proceed under the cafta because the
company “does not have substantial activities in the U.S.A.,” it did permit it to
proceed under El Salvador’s investment laws.492 Pursuing this course in 2013 before
ultimately being purchased by an Australian company, the company had arrived
at a massively higher figure of US$315 million, which they claim is owed to them
by the Salvadoran government.493 Ángel Ibarra, of Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña
(Salvadoran Ecological Unity, ues), called the company’s actions “extortion.”
For Ibarra, “it’s false that the company promoted development in Cabañas and
El Salvador. They acted in the same style as a criminal organization, robbing and
looting the people.”494
The problems Pacific Rim faced in advancing its investments in El Salvador are
emblematic of the precarious state of foreign mining investment in the country.
Community mobilizing—and the extreme violence activists have faced—has
forced the human rights and environmental consequences of large-scale industrial
mining onto the national political stage. Nor are Salvadorans ignorant of the con-
troversies of Canadian companies elsewhere in the region, as they begin to organize
with their Honduran and Guatemalan counterparts to challenge the destructive
impacts of Canadian mining in the isthmus. Indeed, social movements against

mining have been sharing information and consolidating alliances across borders.
One indication of such a trend was the establishment of a Salvadoran branch of
the Movimiento Mesoamericano Contra la Minería Metálica (Mesoamerican
Movement against Metallic Mining, M4).495 As a result of this and other initiatives
by social movement opposition, mining has stalled. In addition, the right-wing
arena has, at least in 2009, shown itself to be a fairweather ally of the industry, and
Saca’s presidential successor, Mauricio Funes, of the leftist Frente Farabundo Martí
de Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, fmln), also
failed to live up to Canadian expecations for pliability from a Third World leader.
The fmln spent most of the post-war period wrought by internecine struggles
between a leftist current in favour of a commitment to the original revolutionary
principles of the organization, the ortodoxos, and a rightist current in favour of
moving away from those commitments and shifting the party to the centre, the
renovadores. Between 1994 and 2009, the party made electoral gains in the Congress
and took the mayoralities of several municipalities, but the ortodoxo candidates
for the presidency were unsuccessful. The winning ticket of Funes signalled the
departure from this pattern.496 According to two close observers of Salvadoran
politics and sympathizers of the renovated fmln, Héctor Perla Jr. and Héctor
Cruz-Feliciano, the fmln
took power through elections, running a presidential candidate who

was not even a party militant but had significant electoral appeal among
centrist and middleclass voters. As a result, the journalist Mauricio Funes
assumed executive office without a commitment to the Farabundistas’
revolutionary ideals, and his administration is a mixed bag of progres-
sive social policies, occasional confrontation with the fmln, significant
compromise with local elites, and appeasement of the United States.497
Some argue that these compromises extend to a failure on the part of the fmln
government to take sufficiently seriously the problem of violence being regularly
meted out against anti-mining activists.498 For example, one left-wing journalist
reporting on the intimidation and repression faced by Salvadoran activists squaring
off with Pacific Rim notes that Funes “has done little to ratchet down on perpetra-
tors of violence in Cabañas.”499
Nonetheless, alarm bells went off in the industry after the mining press warned
early in Funes’ mandate that he wanted to implement a total ban on mining, and
that he had appointed a former director of an environmental ngo, Herman Rosa
Chávez, as Minister of the Environment. “One of the most difficult issues in his
portfolio,” the geographer Anthony Bebbington reports,
was to collaborate with the Ministry of Economy and Commerce in a

process that had to culminate in a new national policy on mining in a
context in which a number of social movements and movement organi-
zations were demanding an outright ban on mining while parts of the
business elite wanted to grow the sector.500
In fact, Funes never staked out such a sharp position (despite one poll showing
that two-thirds of Salvadorans would support a ban on precious metals mining),
and instead pledged only not to permit new mining exploitation projects during
his tenure. A reaffirmation of this position came after the fifth assassination of an
anti-Pacific Rim activist in the summer of 2011.501 Funes and the Congress then
proactively supported Strategic Environmental Assessment, in order to delay the
process and to shift the discussion from political to technical terrain—this process
will likely lead to the establishment of a new mining law, which is a double-edged
sword for Canada. A new law that is still favourable to foreign investors is of course
a step forward for Canadian capital, but given the strong opposition to Canadian
companies such an outcome is far from guaranteed; and indeed one proposal calls
for a complete ban all metallic mining.
Extra-parliamentary pressure on the fmln government for a ban on hard rock
mining is coming from a number of social movement organizations, the most
important of which is the Mesa Nacional frente a la Minería Metálica de El Salvador
(National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining in El Salvador, La Mesa). Standing
before the Salvadoran parliament in July 2013, Carlos Flores, a leading member of
La Mesa, made this position clear, explaining that “we come before the assembly to
present a piece of correspondence in which we reiterate our demand of the last six
years—that the legislative assembly discuss and approve the Law Prohibiting Hard
Rock Mining in El Salvador.” Flores went on to emphasize how, from La Mesa’s
perspective, “we have to take concrete and incisive actions prohibiting hard rock
mining, the first stage of which is having the assembly prohibit this type of mining
in law.” With the prohibition in place in El Salvador, a related communiqué from La
Mesa explains, “it would give more legitimacy and moral force to the Salvadoran
government to demand that Guatemala and Honduras suspend mining projects
along our shared borders.”502
“The number of jobs that mining produces becomes irrelevant when considered
against the negative impact on health and the environment,” the communiqué
continues. The document recalls the case of mining activity in San Sebastián, in
the east of the country, which it says left the adjacent community without water
and with rampant health problems among residents:
This scenario of breaking the social web of the community, of destruction

and pollution, is being repeated in the entired region where communities

are being displaced and obliged to emigrate because of the activation of
mega mining projects; and the communities are repressed when they
mount any opposition.503
La Mesa’s demand has also been taken up by the office of the Procuraduría para
la Defensa de Derecho Humanos (Attorney General for the Defence of Human
Rights) in El Salvador. Óscar Luna, head of the office, addressed the legislative
assembly in October 2012, “We know that this type of development generates
human rights impacts, such as those of life, health, and adequate nutrition, the
environment, water, and many other that have to do with the environment.” Ángel
Ibarra of ues echoed Luna’s sentiments, criticizing the fmln government for refus-
ing to adequately respond to La Mesa’s proposals.504
In the midst of the controversy surrounding Pacific Rim, the Canadian ambas-
sador, Marianick Tremblay, and embassy officials nevertheless advocated for the
mining industry after the (in the words of one mining representative) “illegal”505
moratorium and the debate on a new law were initiated. Permitting Salvadorans
to make an independent decision about the future of mining in their country was
simply never an option; Canada would always have to have a say lest El Salvador
make the wrong decision. The embassy’s role included a strategy session with
representatives of the Mining Association of El Salvador in 2011 that included
discussion of how the embassy could advocate for Canadian companies, though
it was tempered with a caution from the embassy about the need for both the
embassy and industry to proceed carefully in their public advocacy for mining in
the wake of the assassinations.
Tempering the push for mining was merely a pr measure, however, as one
embassy communication to Ottawa in early 2011 notes that despite the difficul-
ties the industry has faced, “the political debate on mining activities in El Salvador
is far from over,” and that certain “positive steps”—including the Ministry of the
Economy hiring an environmental consulting firm to study the environmental
feasibility of mining in the country in 2011, and the firm’s willingness to seek input
from Canadian companies—“indicate that [redacted] the Salvadoran authorities
might be getting ready to consider the subject [redacted].” “The Embassy,” the
communication adds, “will remain attentive to the concerns of the Canadian
companies” and will look into the possibility of bringing a “Canadian expert to El
Salvador to discuss mining” with Salvadoran officials and the consulting firm.506
The embassy’s optimism was bolstered further shortly after, following an offer
from a mining analyst in the Salvadoran National Assembly—in another tentative
opening offered to Canadians to shape the discussion on mining’s future in the
country—to discuss mining policies with ambassador Tremblay, which an embassy
official notes is another “excellent opportunity to offer some expert advice to the
Salvadoran government.”507
As is a common theme in the Canadian diplomatic strategy to defend the min-
ing industry from the criticism of social movements and leery governments, the
Canadians also used the annual pdac conference to build support for Canadian
capital among reluctant Salvadoran officials. In early 2011, for example, representa-
tives from the embassy, fait, and Natural Resources Canada (nrcan) discussed
bringing Salvadorans to Ottawa to meet with mining experts and representatives
from various Canadian ministeries and the Mining Association of Canada so that
“they begin to appreciate that mining can lead to development.” A fait representa-
tive adds in an exchange with the embassy that “pdac offers a unique opportunity
to foreign delegations because within the space of a few days they have access to
the whole of Canada and things mining.”508
The goal here is clearly to influence the policy-making of well-placed members
of the Salvadoran state despite (or in fact because of) the strong public opposi-
tion to Canadian mining. Neither the Canadian state nor companies can convince
the mass of Salvadorans to accept Canadian investment, but they can target and
pressure more influential Salvadorans—some of whom are clearly open to being
convinced—and push them towards political decisions the poor majority are
against. Talk of how mining is good for development from Canadian “experts” may
be insinuated into the discussions at pdac, but we need to remember the confer-
ence is organized, financed, and attended by the Canadian mining industry and
its supporters within the Canadian state, who, given their collective track record
around the world, including in Canada, can hardly be considered honest or neu-
tral sources of expertise on the potential of meaningful sustainable development
achieved through mining.
Costa Rica
While the myth of a classless society of yeomen farmers in Costa Rica for much
of the twentieth century is a profound exaggeration, it is nonetheless true that the
country—folded uneasily into the geopolitical embrace of the anti-communist
American empire during the Cold War—exhibited a certain degree of egalitarian
exceptionality in development patterns relative to its neighbours in Central America
and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. Following the resolution of its
short-lived Civil War in 1948, Costa Rica entered into a social democratic period
of mixed economy, liberal democracy, and extensive social programs, which lasted
well into the 1980s. The banking system was nationalized, providing state man-
agers an unusual degree of leverage in guiding growth and development policy.
Membership in the Central American Common Market (cacm) by 1962 offered
both stimulus to and protection for a degree of industrial sector growth, even while
foreign exchange was still acquired in the main through traditional agricultural
exports: coffee, beef, bananas, and rice. Public coverage of health care, education,
and social security was unusually generous in comparative regional terms.509 Class
inequalities, in short, were markedly less extreme than, say, Guatemala, Honduras,
El Salvador, or Nicaragua.
However, Latin America’s lost decade of the 1980s did not bypass Costa Rica,
and declining rates of growth and terms of trade, as well as escalating levels of debt,
meant first stagnation, and then crisis. In the midst of it all, cacm collapsed. While
Costa Rica had long been beholden to the political whims of U.S. imperialism, in
the 1980s and 1990s the economic face of empire assumed centre stage. The key
channels for the translation of external pressures were a range of international
financial institutions (ifis), the imf, World Bank, and usaid among the most
important. Under the auspices of new structural adjustment agreements between
these ifis and the Costa Rican state, the social democratic order of the post-1948
period gave way to a neoliberal model rooted in extreme austerity, trade liberaliza-
tion, and financial deregulation, all with the aim of shifting accumulation toward
export-led development; the expansion of maquiladora production utilizing cheap
labour; the extension of non-traditional agricultural exports and tourism; and the
export of migrant labour to the United States, such that remittances would become
more important than ever to the country’s political economy.510
The ostensibly Centre-Left administration of Luis Alberto Monge (1982–
1986), of Costa Rica’s long-standing social democratic Partido Liberación
Nacional (National Liberation Party, pln), set the ball rolling with regard to
neoliberal economic restructuring. Óscar Arias, during his first administration
(1986–1990), pushed these efforts further still, consolidating the pln as a
neoliberal party. The direction and momentum of neoliberalism has not altered
in its broad parameters since, under the respective presidencies of Rafael Ángel
Calderón Fournier (1990–1994) of the conservative Partido Unidad Social
Cristiana (Social Christian Unity Party, pusc), José Figueres Olsen (1994–1998)
of the pln, Miguel Rodríguez Echeverría (1998–2002) and Abel Pacheco de la
Espriella (2002–2006) of the pusc, and Óscar Arias (2006–2010) and Laura
Chinchilla (2010–2014) of the pln.
Costa Rican domestic capital experienced processes of rapid concentration
around the country’s largest firms, and these developed tighter linkages with
major regional capitalists from the rest of Central America and Mexico, as well
as big foreign capital from North America and parts of Asia. The area of finance
is one example. Between 1986 and 1997, the privatization of the banking sector
witnessed an early explosion of private financial institutions from twenty-five to
forty-two. But this was quickly reversed as a few private banks concentrated their
grip. Since 1997, “the share of the three largest private banks in total assets went
from 30.8 percent,” notes economist Diego Sánchez Ancochea,
to 48.8 percent in May 2003. In 2003 the ten largest private banks con-
trolled more than 80 per cent of total assets and 70 per cent of net worth
in the private financial sector.…In 2003 public banks had only 1.6 times
more assets than private banks, compared to 5.1 in 1989 and 3.3 in 1993.511
The reduction of social programs and the decline in trade union and peasant
power vis-à-vis the ruling class precipitated a heightening of social stratification
well beyond anything the country had experienced since the early decades of the
twentieth century.
The willed disintegration of Costa Rica’s social democracy on the part of the
country’s elites and international financial institutions was met with fierce, if ulti-
mately unsuccessful, resistance. According to the detailed analysis of collective
actions reported in major Costa Rican newspaper outlets, the sociologist Sindy
Mora Solano shows that between 1995 and 2004 there was a total of 3,904 protest
events. The intensity of resistance spikes in 1994, 2000, and 2004, with 450, 613,
and 648 collective actions across these respective years.512 In 1995, the spike in
activity turned around a national teachers strike. The intensity of 2000 has to do
with the fact that, early that year, Costa Rica witnessed a campaign against the pri-
vatization of electrical power and telecommunications that represented one of the
largest mass mobilizations in the country’s recent political history.513 The struggle
against Costa Rica’s participation in cafta was another quintessential social bat-
tle against the new model of accumulation, taking the form of major and repeated
national demonstrations across the country. This acceleration of protest accounts
for the apogee of extra-parliamentary struggle in 2004. Once Arias resumed office in
2006, the negotiation of the cafta treaty was such an intensely contested political
issue that he was forced to put the treaty’s ratification to a binding referendum on
October 7, 2007. In the event, the pro-cafta camp scraped out a victory with 52
percent to the no campaigners’ 48. “That ratification was ever in doubt, however,”
sociologist Eduardo Frajman observes,
and that the referendum took place at all when the treaty enjoyed the
support of two successive presidents and their cabinets, a sufficient
majority of legislators, strong financial capital, the country’s major media
conglomerates, and the United States, is testimony to the effectiveness of
the opposition through five years of intense struggle.514
As in the other cases of Central America we have examined, the neoliberal transi-
tion was essential to Canadian capital’s entry into Costa Rica’s market. Specifically,
the generalized orientation toward trade liberalization and export-oriented growth

across Costa Rican governments of every stripe provided the basis for the establish-
ment of a free trade agreement between Canada and the Central American country
in 2002. Since that time, Canadian fdi has grown considerably in Costa Rica, and
is estimated by fait to be at close to C$1 billion today. Against the backdrop of
the privatization of the banking industry mentioned earlier, this overall uptick in
Canadian fdi in Costa Rica includes Scotiabank’s takeover of two banks since 2001,
including the largest private bank in the country, Interfin, as well as Groupe ebi,
which runs three major waste disposal facilities in the country.515 As elsewhere in
Central America, mining features prominently in Canadian investment patterns,
and has been at the centre of contentious political developents within Costa Rica.
In 1997, the efforts of Montreal-based corporation Lyon Lake, and its Costa
Rican subsidiary Novontar S.A., to establish open-pit gold mines on their Beta
Vargas and Guaitilar properties, near the communities of Puntarena and Lourdes
de Abangares, respectively, were successfully defeated by local environmental and
community groups.516 As of 2013, there are two active mining properties, both
owned by Canadian companies. B2 Gold’s Bellavista property was a producing
mine until it was shut down due to serious structural problems centred on a shift-
ing heap-leach pad built on the side of a hill. B2’s efforts to reopen the mine have
been criticized by environmentalists. But Infinito Gold’s Las Crucitas has drawn
the most critical attention in the country, and has been the subject of a popular
national opposition movement. Indeed, in the wake of the defeat of the anti-
cafta struggles, popular movements against mining have gradually assumed the
preeminent position in the wider array of resistance to the neoliberal status quo.
Las Crucitas is a massive open-pit project containing an estimated 1.24 million
ounces of gold, which has courted controversy for nearly two decades. The mine is
located 105 kilometres north of San José close to Río San Juan, near the Nicaraguan
border. The usual concerns that attend massive open-pit mines, of poisoning and
destruction of local rivers and ecosystems, have been raised by nearby residents,
and many Costa Ricans throughout the country.517 Canadian company Placer Dome
(subsequently taken over by Barrick) dropped plans to develop the mine in 1997
due to widespread opposition. Vannessa Ventures took over the project in 2000
and was granted an exploitation permit in 2002. That same year, the government
of Abel Pacheco issued a moratorium on open-pit mining, but Las Crucitas was
grandfathered because it had already received its permit.518 However, opponents
of the mine won an injunction against it and in 2004 the Constitutional Court
annulled the exploitation permit.519
Vannessa Ventures/Infinito Gold never stood alone in Costa Rica in defence
of its interests. Outside the public eye, “the embassy,” in the words of a brief co-
written by embassy and fait officials in the Latin American and Caribbean section,
“has supported the company and has repeatedly conveyed these messages to the
senior decision makers of the country.”520 The election of Óscar Arias in 2006
proved useful to Canadian interests. Despite both public and judicial concerns
about the mine, in 2008 (the year Vannessa Ventures changed its name to Infinito
Gold) Arias lifted the moratorium on open-pit mining, Las Crucitas was granted
new environmental and mining permits, and Arias declared the mine to be in the
country’s national interest.521 But Arias’ prostration before Canadian demands
galvanized opposition to the mine.
Canadian mining interests and their allies in the embassy were duly concerned
that they had lost a loyal friend when Arias left office in 2010. Aware of the possible
support of a moratorium on open-pit mining by president-elect Laura Chinchilla,
embassy and fait officials in Ottawa discussed the potential impact on Canadian
interests, while Kent was dispatched to meet with several of her key new cabinet
ministers shortly after her inauguration.522 Chinchilla did issue a ban on all new
open-pit mining, which was approved by the National Assembly in November 2010,
but the ban did not touch Crucitas because it had already received its exploitation
permits to begin construction.523 In one expression of the anti-mining movement’s
discontent with the exclusion of Crucitas from the mining moratorium, protesters
carried out a 170 kilometre march from the presidential palace in San José to the
open-pit mine in July 2010.524 In one later indication of the anti-mining movement’s
ability to squeeze the Chinchilla administration, 2012 witnessed the resignation of
her Vice-Minister of the Environment, Andrei Bourrouet, after environmentalists
accused him of having had ties to Infinito in the past.525
As public pressure mounted on Chinchilla to stop the project—with the sharp
growth of the opposition a subject of commentary in a fait briefing526—in late
summer 2010 the Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo (Administrative Disputes
Tribunal, tca) declared that it would allow an appeal by an environmental organi-
zation, challenging the right for the Crucitas mine to proceed as per the decrees
of the Arias government. The rising tide of opposition, and the tca’s decision,
prompted an angry public outburst from the Canadian ambassador, Neil Reeder.
Reeder demanded that Costa Rica respect the law and permit Infinito Gold to
continue with its plans for Las Crucitas, and warned the Costa Rican govern-
ment of the potentially bad international image it would develop if it violated
Infinito’s rights. In his last public comments as ambassador to Costa Rica before
his promotion to Director General for Latin America and the Caribbean in fait,
Neil Reeder defended the company, declaring that “they (Infinito) have respected
all the rules of the game.” He added a few words for the court, warning that it has
“sent a very uncertain message to the international investment community at a
time when Costa Rica is actively looking for more foreign investment.”527 Infinito’s
troubles also apparently caught the attention of the Privy Council Office in Ottawa
which later that fall requested updates from fait on Las Crucitas.528 Perhaps not
coincidentally, Infinito’s largest controlling shareholder, billionaire Ron Mannix,
is based out of Calgary, ground zero for Harper’s Conservative Party. While no
hard evidence is available linking Mannix to the Harper government on this spe-
cific matter, it is nonetheless worth mentioning that in the thousands of pages of
Access to Information and Privacy files we have dissected in conducting research
for this book, never have we encountered such a request for updates from fait.
The opposition to Las Crucitas and open-pit mining remained, for the Canadian
state and capital, stubbornly resilient, and on November 24, 2010 the tca annulled
Infinito’s permit, due to what it said were multiple irregularities in how the permit
was obtained from the Arias government, precipitating a 60 percent drop in the
company’s shares.529 The tribunal also raised the possibility that corruption on the
part of Arias and his Minister of the Environment and Energy, Roberto Dobles,
played a role in his government’s support for the project. The tca’s decision was
vindicated in the First Hall of the Supreme Court in 2012.530 The court had been
asked to annul the tca’s decision by Infinito’s lawyers. Not only did the court
reiterate the validity of the tca decision, but it also reissued the call for a formal
investigation into the actions of Arias and his functionaries that granted the per-
mits to the Canadian company in the first instance.531 For prominent anti-mining
lawyer Edgardo Araya, the Supreme Court’s ruling “was a historic sentence…a big
lesson the small community of northern Costa Rica are giving to the rest of Latin
America on how to get rid of these mining companies that try to undermine the
bases of our institutional systems.”532
Perhaps it is not surprising that in the midst of a major demonstration against
mining in November 2011, protesters chanting in the streets of San José accused
Arias of being little more than the political arm of Infinito Gold.533 And this was
hardly the first time Óscar Arias or his family had exercised their political influence
for questionable ends or personal gain. From a wealthy family, the ex-president has
been an institution in Costa Rican political and economic life for decades, and has
been aligned with Canadian ambitions in the region as an ally of Canadian mining,
and as a key part of the effort to find a negotiated solution to Honduras’ political
crisis following the 2009 coup that would hold President Manuel Zelaya in check.
Óscar’s brother and adviser, Rodrigo, successfully led the legal effort to change the
law prohibiting multiple presidential terms, to which Canada said nothing despite
being quick to criticize the likes of Zelaya or Hugo Chávez with threadbare accu-
sations of attempting to thwart established democratic norms in their countries
and concentrate power in their hands. Accusations of influence peddling swirled
around Rodgrio in 2005 regarding a sole-source landfill contract with the city of
San José, awarded to a Canadian company, ebi. According to a cable from the U.S.
embassy, when ebi’s initial efforts to win the contract were thwarted twice by the
Costa Rican Comptroller because the sole-source was not properly justified, the
company engaged Rodrigo’s law firm, and the brother allegedly made one call to
the Comptroller and the contract was approved. Calls for Rodrigo to step down
as campaign manager for his brother when the accusations became public were
ignored by Óscar.534 The full story behind Óscar Arias’s solid support for Infinito
has yet to be told, but in 2008 Mannix offered to donate US$250,000 to the Arias
foundation, and made the offer directly in the office of the foundation’s executive
director, Arias himself. He insists that he did not accept the money.535
Canada, not surprisingly, has remained quiet on the corruption allegations,
as Arias is an ally and Mannix a friend of and donor to the Conservatives.536 In
fact, Infinito—together with B2—financed the Canada Day celebrations at the
embassy in San José in 2011, despite the controversy and anger it has engendered
in Costa Rica.537 For its part, Infinito has tried to publicly discredit scientific studies
criticizing the project as “merely speculative” or “poorly executed,” yet company
representatives have frequently ducked out on national debates with opponents
of open-pit mining.538 After sending representatives for the two previous years, in
2010 and 2011, company representatives of Infinito, as well as lawyers and func-
tionaries from the Ministry of the Environment, Energy, and Telecommunications
refused an invitation to participate in the annual debate on the theme of mining
hosted by United Nations University for Peace in San José.539 In one debate in
2010 at the Catholic University in the capital city, in which Infinito did partici-
pate, the corporation’s representative Juan Carlos Obando’s rhetorical recipe was
one part corporate social responsibility and one part veiled threats of legal action
against anyone defaming the company’s reputation. Obando emphasized the
environmentally-friendly character of Infinito’s projects in Costa Rica and stressed
the corporation’s generous openness to public debate and access to information
to those interested. He then suggested, more ominously, that the kind of cynical
statements made by his opponents in the debate could lead to legal action against
them on the part of Infinito.540
Indeed, the corporation has repeatedly threatened various mine opponents with
lawsuits for defamation for public comments they made criticizing the company
and its relations to Costa Rican authorities, including criticisms that were actually
made first by the tca. Two academics, a lawyer, and two Congressional legislators
have been targeted, some for as much as US$1 million, drawing further criticism
from anti-Inifinito activists for trying to criminalize the opposition.541 Edgardo
Araya spoke for many of the targeted activists when he said, “they want us to shut
up, but this is not going to happen, and I’m going to continue saying what needs
to be said.”542 Infinito’s harassment of opponents and efforts to challenge the tca’s
decision also inspired a day of protests and mass marches in November 2012 in San
José, which called for the government to expel the company.543 It was not long after,
with public opposition still strong, and questions of corruption swirling around
Arias and Infinito, that the First Hall of the Supreme Court rejected Infinito’s
request for it to annul the tca’s decision to halt development of Las Crucitas.544
Nicaragua
The Sandinista Revolution (1979–1990), under the leadership of the Frente
Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front, fsln),
was a beacon of inspiration for much of the international Left through the darkest
moments of the Reagan-Thatcher era. While never transitioning beyond a mixed
capitalist economy, the Sandinistas achieved important gains in poverty allevia-
tion, literacy, education, and health care coverage for Nicaragua’s tiny population
of roughly 3 million. All of this was made more extraordinary by the fact that the
social gains of the revolution were carried out without an authoritarian concentra-
tion of power, in spite of the sustained assault of a counterinsurgency campaign led
by the U.S.-financed Contras.545 Besieged from outside, and exhausted from years
of civil war, the revolution’s end was ultimately marked by the electoral victory of
the Contra-backed candidate of the Unión Nacional Opositora (United National
Opposition), Violeta Chamorro, in the 1990 presidential elections. Ruling the
country until 1997, Chamorro initiated a dramatic neoliberal economic restructur-
ing of the socio-economic life of Nicaragua, a turn reinforced by her presidential
successors Arnoldo Alemán (1997–2002) and Enrique Bolaños (2002–2007),
both of the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (Constitutionalist Liberal Party).
Meanwhile, Daniel Ortega was overseeing a sixteen-year restructuring of the
fsln, one that witnessed a consolidation of power within the party in the hands of
Ortega and a few other loyal figures, as well as a concerted shift to the Right, away
from the movement’s foundational, revolutionary ideals. This trajectory involved
a split in the fsln in 1995, with the formation of a dissident Sandinista grouping,
the Movimiento Renovador Sandinista (Sandinista Renovation Movement, mrs).
The mrs left the fsln in opposition to declining internal party democracy and the
accompanying shift to the Right in the party’s social and economic orientation
under Ortega’s leadership.546
The remaining fsln entered into a series of pacts with an array of Conservative
forces in an effort to secure electoral success, beginning in 2001 when Ortega
forged an alliance with ex-President, and former Somoza official, Arnoldo Alemán
in the lead up to the presidential elections that year. This was followed in 2006 by
Ortega’s extraordinary pact with Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, an emblem-
atic figure of counterrevolutionary Catholicism in the years of the Contras. This
opportunistic alliance was solidified through Ortega’s conversion to the faith, and
his related coordination of total fsln congressional support for legislation enacted
during the 2006 presidential campaign period banning abortion in Nicaragua—the

extremity of the ban is revealed in the fact that the law is deemed in effect even
when a pregnant woman’s life is in danger. Finally, in the same spirit, Ortega chose
former Contra leader Jaime Morales as his vice-presidential running mate in 2006.
Even with these concessions to the Right, however, Ortega achieved a desultory
37.9 percent of the popular vote, enough to finally put him in the presidency, but
on a fragile basis.547
It is perhaps unsurprising, then, to see the governmental discordance since
Ortega’s initial victory in 2006, and re-election in 2010, between “traditional
anti-imperialist and working-class discourse” and “policies and actions” that “often
appear to contradict its words,” including “adherence to the Central American
Free Trade Agreement (cafta) and the …maintenance of a dollarized economy
in El Salvador,” among other neoliberal continuities.548 Financial Times reporter
Adam Thomson notes how U.S. officials have praised Ortega’s performance in
the so-called “war on drugs,” and that local business leaders have described their
relationship with the government as “constructive and fluid.” “Under Mr. Ortega’s
brand of socialism,” Thomson highlights in a 2011 article, “foreign trade and foreign
direct investment have more than doubled in the past five years. During the first
half of the year, the economy showed a growth rate of more than 5 percent—one
of the highest in Latin America.”549 Nonetheless, Ortega has simultaneously run
into conflict with some of the most powerful countries in the world, due to the
fact that his foreign policy initiatives have included alliances with Venezuela, Cuba,
Bolivia, and Ecuador, under the rubric of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos
de Nuestra América (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, alba). In
a similar vein, Ortega has incurred the diplomatic wrath of the American govern-
ment most recently for offering asylum to U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden.550
These are some of the complex facets at the heart of recent political develop-
ments in Nicaragua, during a time in which the country has become an important
destination for Canadian capital, particularly in the sectors of finance, energy,
telecommunications, and mining. Canada was the largest foreign investor nation in
2010 with US$1.3 billion invested, and again in 2011 by a wide margin. Canadian
companies were part of major hydroelectricity infrastructure project announce-
ments in 2011, and as of August 2012 all fifteen active mining properties were
owned by Canadian companies.551
A leading mining industry periodical comments that Ortega has “been con-
sistent in broadly promoting an investor-friendly environment.”552 While mining
tax and royalty rates have not been as low as they are in neighbouring countries,
under Ortega they were also not completely out of proportion with the region’s
generally low rates. Ortega has also supported the industry in helping to contain
labour struggle. During a 2009 strike against one of the larger mining operations
in the country, owned by Canadian company B2Gold, the periodical notes that
“the government supported B2Gold—labelling the strike ‘illegal’.”553
As another signal of the government’s commitment to enabling foreign direct
investment in the country’s mining sector, in March 2013 Ortega sent a large delega-
tion to one of the most important annual mining conferences in the world, hosted
by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (pdac) in Toronto.
In attendance were Francisco Campbell, the Nicaraguan ambassador to the U.S.
and Canada; Álvaro Baltodano, the presidential delegate for investment; Carlos
Zarruk, Director General of mines in the Ortega administration; and Sergio Ríos,
President of the Mining Chamber of Nicaragua. According to a press release from
the Agencia de Promoción de Inversiones de Nicaragua (Agency for the Promotion
of Investment in Nicaragua, ProNicaragua), the seminar which the delegation led
at the conference—“Nicaragua, Discover the Opportunities in Mining”—stressed
the country’s pro-mining juridical framework, the alliance between the government
and the private sector, and the vast opportunities for future investment in mining
exploration and exploitation.554
In late November 2010, president and executive director of B2Gold visited
Nicaragua to announce that his company would be investing US$7 million in
Nicaragua in the following year for gold mining exploration in the municipalities
of La Libertad, in the department of Chontales, and El Limón, in the depart-
ment of León. Mining exploitation would see a further US$27 million invested
by B2Gold for the same year. “The country has a good system of legislation,”
Johnson remarked, “and also has a very just tax system, demonstrating that it
wants investment from international corporations to create employment.”555 In
spite of the fall in gold and other commodity prices in the first half of 2013, Pablo
Venturo, B2Gold’s manager in Nicaragua, suggested in an interview in May that
the company’s medium-term investment plans would not be changing. “It is not
the case that the sector is losing power, but rather we’ve entered a new situation,
which is characterized by the recent fall in the international prices of gold,” Venturo
noted. The drop in prices was “an external variable that is not controllable by
companies, but the rate of production and projects will continue advancing in
the entire sector in general.” In the interview, Venturo stated that by 2017 B2Gold
expects to have invested US$344 million in the country, in the La Libertad and
El Limón mines alone.556
B2Gold’s projects of exploitation and expansion in Chontales have been the
focus of sustained resistance from various community organizations.557 In late
July and early August 2013, for example, five hundred artisanal miners, from an
association of small miners called El Cafetal, re-established a road blockade against
B2Gold, near Chontales. The blockade had been set up initially in February 2013,
but police forces were sent in to repress the activists, resulting in forty-seven
detainees, twelve of whom were ultimately convicted of various charges, and seven
injuries. Javier Amador, one of the leaders of El Cafetal, said in the August protest:
We will continue on our feet, rejuvenating force and courage in our strug-
gle, in order to continue confronting the monstrous power of B2Gold,
which represents death, hunger, and destruction—the enrichment of
its associates, while leaving nothing for our people, except misery and
illnesses.558
The Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos (Nicaraguan Centre for

Human Rights) has formally presented complaints over the police repression of
anti-B2Gold activists to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights within
the Organization of American States (oas).559
Likewise, B2Gold has faced opposition in the community of Rancho Grande,
in the department of Matagalpa, a zone rich in biodiversity, with forests, rivers, and
small-producer agriculture, located 213 kilometres north of the capital Managua.
There is no active mine in the region as of yet, but B2Gold was granted a concession
for exploration in the area in 2010. Since that time, there have been three major
marches in opposition to exploration, the latest, on March 21, 2013, involving over
four thousand protesters. The grassroots of the Catholic Church in the area, still
imbued with the progressive legacy of liberation theology, has been behind much
of the anti-mining organization.560
Pablo Espinoza, one of the forty-three priests of the local diocese of Matagalpa
opposed to B2Gold, justified the community’s opposition with the following:
Nature is the only wealth here, as a resource of our area. More than that, I
would say that [to develop mining here] would be to eliminate the source
of life for the entire Matagalpa region, and for Nicaragua as a whole. From
here comes the oxygen that we all need to breathe. These mountains, these
rivers, are why the local population [has gathered] freely and voluntarily
in this assembly to make their presence felt.
Espinoza condemned the petty handouts that he said B2Gold offers those in the
community in exchange for allegiance to the corporation’s activities. He described
being offered a car and a job with a good salary if he stopped his activism. “Can you
imagine the weight on my conscience if I had opened my door to that? It would
be like sending all of these people to the slaughterhouse.”561
The Red de Mujeres de Matagalpa (Network of Women of Matagalpa, rmm)
is another community organization involved in the struggle against B2Gold in
Rancho Grande. One rmm activist, Carola Brantome, notes that “there is very
strong resistance from the population of Rancho Grande to the establishment of a
mining company.” Brantome laments the fact that the Ortega government has not
lent its support to opposition to the project. “We are sure that the government is
conscious of the damage that this could do to the environment and population,”
Brantome says, “of the damage that will bring misery and death, as occurred in the
past in the banana zones.”562 Norma Chavarría is another leading activist in Rancho
Grande. “The people are conscious of the damage and consequences that will fol-
low if permits for extracting gold are given to B2Gold,” she says. “The people of
the community are not only thinking of the immediate area in which the mine will
be located, but the entire region and all of the sources of water in the surround-
ing communities” that are facing contamination. Rejecting B2Gold’s claims of
corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability, for Chavarría the
company “is selling a discourse of bread for today, we are going to have resources
today, but it’s bread for today and death for tomorrow.”563
Given the opposition to B2Gold, we can expect similar developments if the
open-pit mine planned by Vancouver-based Golden Reign Resources Ltd. goes
ahead in San Albino-Murra, in the department of Nueva Segovia. Exploration thus
far has suggested large quantities of gold in the area, and Golden Reign, having
won a twenty-five-year concession of several thousand hectares in the area from
the Ortega government, is optimistic that they will be able to develop an open-pit
mine in the near future.564
Despite his support for the mining industry, Ortega’s past and current associa-
tion with Hugo Chávez has made him a target of Canadian criticism. The embassy
and Canadian government have also targeted what they perceive as his attack on
Nicaraguan democracy. Following municipal elections in 2008 that the Nicaraguan
opposition criticized as fraudulent, the Canadian embassy, with instructions from
Ottawa, “urged” the U.S. not to simply ask for a recount of ballots, but to support
a more thorough investigation as per the opposition’s wishes. When Nicaragua’s
Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional ban on consecutive re-election of
officials, opening the way for Ortega’s successful run for re-election in 2010, the
Harper government hypocritically attacked the decision, suggesting it “continues
the very worrying trend of narrowing democratic space in Nicaragua.” 565
Constitutional change permitting re-election in Nicaragua is unacceptable for
the Canadians, despite the fact that, as noted above, nothing was said when the
brother of Canadian ally Óscar Arias successfully led the charge in Costa Rica,
which enabled Arias to run for presidential re-election—not to mention the fact
that Canadian prime ministers, such as Stephen Harper, can run for re-election as
many times as they like. During a trip to Nicaragua in 2009—not long before the
election of Lobo in Honduras, which Canada fully supported—Kent stressed to
Ortega and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Santos, “Canada’s concern over
the narrowing of democratic space in the country.” Following Ortega’s re-election
in the fall of 2009, Canada again publicly criticized supposed “irregularities and
deficiencies in the preparation for elections and on election day” and warned of
the lack of “democracy and the rule of law,” accusations it repeated at the oas.566
As a result, the Harper government shifted C$1.5 million in Nicaraguan aid to
democratic and electoral reform in the country.567
Panama
While it has received comparatively less attention than other countries in the
isthmus, Panama has become another important site of struggle against Canadian
capital, while the Harper government has actively pushed for stronger access to the
Panamanian market.568 These efforts culminated in Harper’s stop in Panama City in
August 2009, during one of his regular Latin American forays, in which he signed
a free trade agreement and met with current President Ricardo Martinelli of the
conservative Cambio Democrático (Democratic Change) party.569 Identified as a
friendly and stable economic ally in a region where recent political shifts have not
typically favoured the interests of foreign powers, in 2011 Export Development
Canada selected Panama as its Central American and Caribbean regional hub, estab-
lishing a new office there.570 Martinelli’s election in 2009 marked the consolidation
of a long neoliberal turn, beginning with the governments of Guillermo Endara
(1990–1994) and Ernesto Pérez-Balladares (1994–1999).571
But stability for Canadian capital in Panama, as elsewhere in the region, has
proven elusive. Martinelli is at heart a friend of Canadian mining, which dominates
the industry in Panama. From early in his presidency, Martinelli sought to make
it easier for foreign companies to access the country’s untapped mineral deposits,
many of which lie on or near indigenous lands. In 2010, for example, the govern-
ment modified over sixty articles of the Charter of the General Congress, in order
to limit the rights to autonomy and self-governance of the Ngäbe-Buglé, Panama’s
largest indigenous nation.572 This laid the basis for a series of attempts to modify
the Mining Law in order to free the way for foreign investors to establish mines in
Ngäbe-Buglé territory. Martinelli also sought to expedite environmental assess-
ments. These are the kinds of things that endear someone to Canadian mining
leaders and the Harper government.573
But Martinelli’s accommodation to large-scale mining interests has caused a
sharp backlash, which has centred, in part, on Canadian company Inmet Mining.
In 2011, Inmet became the subject of a national debate, emblematic of the
potential environmental destruction associated with large-scale mining and the
government’s willingness to sell out to foreign capital. In February of that year,
amidst angry protests from indigenous activists outside and inside its halls, the
Panamanian Congress repealed a decades-old mining law preventing foreign
governments from investing in its mining sector. Under the new legal scenario,
Inmet—which was seeking financing from sovereign wealth funds from Singapore
and South Korea—could proceed with the construction of Central America’s
largest copper mine (it is estimated it will produce 266,000 tons of copper annu-
ally), the controversial open-pit Cobre Panama project located 120 kilometres
west of Panama City.574 A month later, as protests escalated, Martinelli announced
his intention to reverse the repeal and to reinstate prohibitions on investments
from foreign governments.575 But Martinelli’s stated intention has never been
concretized in a new law. Furthermore, several proposals remain on the table for
the potential construction of mines on indigenous lands. The government also
announced a tender for another large and controversial copper deposit, the Cerro
Colorado. In such a setting, it is unsurprising that protests continued through to
the end of the year.
The opposition to mining expanded even further in January and February 2012,
with a wave of blockades and marches initiated when thousands of Ngäbe-Buglé
blockaded the Inter-American highway in San Félix in the western part of the coun-
try, on the border of Costa Rica. The demonstrators demanded the government
annul the mining and hydroelectric concessions that had been granted in their
territory.576 Martinelli’s government responded by sending in riot police, who shot
teargas—and bullets, according to many on the scene—at the protesters, killing
two, and injuring thirty-two. Forty more activists were detained. “They sent their
riot police. Our demonstration was peaceful and they repressed us,” said Omayra
Silvera, an indigenous leader involved in organizing the blockade. Carlos de la Cruz,
a Catholic priest supporting the demonstrations, reported that a contingent of
police attacked protesters without provocation, and were supported from the air by
a helicopter.577 The January-February 2012 revolt was in many ways a re-enactment
of similar blockades in February 2011, after which the Martinelli government had
agreed to prohibit mining and hydroelectric projects in Ngäbe-Buglé territory.
It was only when the government failed to live up to its word that the blockades
of 2012 were set in place.578 These violent acts of repression, because they were
carried out by an ally, drew no comment from Canada. The repression sparked
more blockades and marches across the country, including in Coclesito in central
Panama where protesters blockaded entrances to Inmet’s Cobre Panama project,
and a mine belonging to the Canadian Petaquilla Minerals.579
Despite opposition to its plans, Inmet’s environmental assessment received
approval from the Martinelli government in January 2012.580 However, the
Panamanian Supreme Court declared that the area where the project is located is
protected as part of the Mesoamerican biological corridor, and so the company
would have to apply to the Directorate of Protected Areas to get approval. In April
2012, after continued and sometimes violent protests by indigenous activists, the
government was forced to pass a law that cancels all mineral exploitation conces-
sions in or near Ngöbe-Buglé territory.581
In a further development that remains unresolved, Martinelli is alleged to have
been involved in a corruption scandal linked to the Canadian companies Financial
Pacific and Petaquilla Minerals. According to the testimony of the principal accused
figure in the case, Mayte Pellegrini, Martinelli used privileged information and his
secret account in Financial Pacific to manipulate the price of shares in Petaquilla
Minerals.582 Directors of Financial Pacific have been accused of falsifying docu-
ments, among other crimes.583
All of the intricate patterns of violent dispossession of communities, and the
policing of dissidents within those communities, that have been associated with
Canadian investments in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua,
and Panama have increasingly raised the necessity of reinforcing the coercive
apparatuses of these states. Flowing both from the immediate material interests of
Canadian capital in the region, and the wider geopolitical concerns of the Canadian
state, the expansion of Canadian investment was paralleled by a heightened concern
on the part of Harper’s government for security in Central America. The remainder
of the chapter highlights some of the most crucial components of Canada’s security
strategy in the region.
Towards a Regional Security Agenda

Given Canadian capital’s growing interests in Central America, and the threats to
those interests from both social movements and governments, it should hardly
come as a surprise that the region would become a focus of Canadian security
policy, as it has under the Harper government. Conservative thinking about the
isthmus was captured by Kent, speaking as Minister of State for the Americas in
2009, when he identified it as “a key region where the issues of security, prosperity
and democratic governance are crucial.”584 The Conservative’s security strategy for
Central America was not clearly worked out at that point, and it would only begin
to be gradually unveiled two years later, but linking prosperity with security and
democracy was by no means new to the Conservative government or the Liberal
ones preceding it. And thus there is little reason to expect significant change under
the new Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. These have long been abiding and
interconnected themes in the Canadian state’s orientation toward towards the
Global South.
Nevertheless, Kent’s observation is exemplary of how the ruling class concep-
tualizes the region in the present. The reference to “prosperity” is left purposely
vague—suggesting they are concerned as much about living standards in the region
as they are the growing economic interests of Canadian investors—but, as we have
discussed, Canadian foreign policy in Central America and the broader region is
clearly driven by the needs of Canadian companies and the challenges they face
from hostile communities and, occasionally, less-than-compliant governments. And
while not elaborated by Kent, subsequent actions and statements by the Harper
government and fait, as discussed throughout this book, leave little ambiguity as
to the nature of their concerns regarding democracy in the region. It seems hardly
coincidental that Kent’s statement came as social movement challenges to Canadian
mining multinationals were on the rise in Central America, and three left-of-centre
governments held the reins of power in the region in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and
Honduras, with another soon to be elected in El Salvador.
Although smaller contributions had been made earlier, the Harper government
really began the process of inserting Canada into the security plans of the isthmus
and its governments in 2011, including the process of building links with local
security forces.585 Citing concern about Guatemala’s “deteriorating security situa-
tion,” Foreign Affairs announced C$7.1 million for the country in June of that year
to “reform security and justice institutions,” with participation from the rcmp.586
The exact nature of the security deteoriation is not discussed in the announcement;
Guatemala certainly has been beset with significant gang violence fuelled by the
drug trade (as have Honduras and El Salvador). But we should also not forget
that a Canadian ambassador raised concerns about law and order in the country
relating to anti-mining activism on national television several years before, while a
2009 National Defence report on Guatemala interestingly notes that “widespread
poverty and inequality continue to pose a serious threat to the country’s fragile
democratic order”—suggesting at least an implicit recognition that the neoliberal
measures Canada advocates could be a source of instability.587
The announcement regarding Guatemala was followed in August of that year
with a commitment of another C$9.2 million for security spending for the region,
including support for the war on drugs, port security, and the surveillance and
investigation endeavors of the post-coup Honduran police.588 Less than a year
later, during the 2012 Summit of the Americas, Harper announced a significant
expansion of Canada’s security spending in the region with the establishment of
the Canadian Initiative for Security in Central America, through which Canada
will spend C$25 million over five years. The initiative includes rcmp training for,
and donation of navigation equipment to, the Costa Rican national police; the
donation of utility vests by dnd to Belize’s military; training for security forces
in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in the use of specialized equipment for
wiretapping, surveillance, and intelligence analysis; and partnering with Colombia
to support police forces in Honduras and Guatemala.589 We can add to these new
spending commitments the ongoing engagement by dnd with military officers
from Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua through
the Military Training and Cooperation Program. What is more, the Canadian
military has also participated in the annual Plan Panamex war-game manoeuvers
since 2003, which were initiated to exercise responses to threats to the Panama
Canal, a key regional transit way for shipping. Canada’s participation has included
naval destroyers.590
Compared to U.S. security spending in the region, Canadian spending is
small (and Canada of course is a much smaller country without the history of
foreign intervention). All the same, the level of Canadian spending is significant
for Canadian interests in Central America, as well as for the recipient countries.
Canadian security spending is often justified as part of the fight against narco-
trafficking. While narco violence in Central America is real, the war on drugs
has had significant human rights consequences, with beefed up security forces
violently intervening in poor neighbourhoods, trampling on poor and young
peoples’ rights, and creating significant collateral damage. None of this has done
much to curtail the highest echelons of power within the narco-trafficing industry,
which are often tied to political and economic elites within Central American
countries. Canada’s financing the war can only intensify these problems further.
But the war on drugs has also provided convenient cover to Central American
governments and their backers to evict peasant and indigenous communities from
their lands in the name of fighting crime. While not every militarized operation
in the war on drugs is aimed at dispossessing the poor of their land in order to
make way for tourist and resource development, some such operations appear
as thinly veiled efforts to do exactly that; a pattern has clearly been established
between violent evictions in counternarcotics operations and land coveted by
multinational capital.591
But however important the war on drugs is or is not to Canadian foreign
policy in the region, Canadian spending is not aimed solely at narco-trafficking;
and the Harper government certainly never suggested that. Its broader goal is to
strengthen security forces in the isthmus, and its relations with them, in the fight
to impose order in the region against any people or groups deemed a threat to that
order. That may encompass narco-trafficking, but the security forces Canada is
funding and training do not focus on that alone; these are the same apparatuses
that attack anti-mining blockades in Guatemala, for example, or target political
dissidents for allegedly criminal behaviour in Honduras, Guatemala, and El
Salvador. In order to advance this security agenda, Canada is funding police
forces with seriously questionable human rights records, and which have faced
sharp criticism for their treatment of political dissidents, including participants
in anti-mining campaigns, such as in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
The situation in Honduras has been the most egregious since the 2009 coup, as
we detailed in a previous chapter, where the police, both on duty and through
participation in unofficial paramilitary units, have been deeply involved in post-

coup violence. Any claim that Canadian spending will improve or “reform” the
behaviour of these security apparatuses, which is not even a significant claim in
the government’s own announcements, is belied by the structural corruption
endemic to these security forces, the persistent inequality in the region, and
the strong opposition to neoliberalism that will require force to be contained.
The fact that in its financing of police training in post-coup Honduras, Canada
is partnering with police from Colombia, the country with the worst human
rights record in the hemisphere, is indicative of the government’s commitment
to genuine police reform and protection of human rights.
Conclusion
This chapter has sought to chart the deep contours of Canadian investment
dynamics and diplomatic interventions in El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua,
and Panama. In so doing, it has linked these narratives to our earlier investigation
of Honduras and Guatemala. What is plainly evident from the discussion so far
is the systematic and structural character of the Canadian state’s defence of the
basic material interests of Canadian capital across the entirety of Central America.
Our six Central American case studies, and analysis of the security strategy of the
Canadian state across the region as a whole, have together pushed aside the thin
ideological veneer of democracy promotion and defence of human rights, to reveal
the imperialist core of Canadian foreign policy.
In providing such a map of Canadian tactics and strategies in Central America,
we have sought simultaneously to recognize in full both the historical complexity
of domestic developments in each country, and the agency of Central America’s
popular classes in defending their rights and dignity in the face of powerful and
violent enemies. As much as this is a story of Canadian imperial extension and
control, it is also one of heroic resistance, rather than passive acquiescence, on the
part of the regions exploited and oppressed.
Part iii
the Andes
147
Chapter 5
Canada’s Evil Hour

in Colombia
E xport Development Canada (edc) is the federal agency responsible for trade
financing and insurance for companies seeking to expand or break into new mar-
kets. edc, as part of its overarching strategy in South and Central America, opened
an office in Bogotá in early February 2014. The objective of the new office is to
strengthen Canada’s presence in Colombia’s Andean region, and to help Canadian
corporations to exploit an expected expansion of infrastructure projects.
According to Rajesh Sharma, senior vice-president for international business
development at edc, “the capital-intensive demands of large infrastructure projects
present a number of opportunities for edc to bring its significant financing capacity
to the region, to the benefit of Canadian companies operating there.” With an eye
on the expansion of extractive natural resource industries, the office in Bogotá will
help Canadian firms, “link to the supply chains of upcoming infrastructure, oil and
gas, and mining project opportunities,” according to Sharma. “Canada’s expertise
in smart grids in the power sector, clean technologies and cost-efficient supply for
the oil and gas sector could spur greater trade, given the natural match between
what Colombia wants and what Canada is very good at providing.”592
The new edc office is merely the latest visible hub in Canada’s imperial network
in the Andes. Its strategic location will enable Canadian investment coordination
south from Colombia into Ecuador and Peru, and north into Central America. The
base in Bogotá also reflects Canadian capital’s accelerating interests in Colombia
itself, particularly in the extractive industries of mining and oil, but extending
outwards into telecommunications, finance, arms sales, printing, footwear, food
148
Canada’s Evil Hour In Colombia 149
processing, education, and paper.593 Employing the mechanisms made available

through development aid, a bilateral Free Trade Agreement between Canada and
Colombia, and security support for the Colombian state’s militarization of the
countryside, the Canadian government has facilitated a new wave of Canadian
investment in the Andean country in recent years, after an earlier wave petered
out in the mid-to-late 1990s, as a consequence of an uptick in violent conflict.
Canadian investment in Colombia more than quadrupled from C$414 mil-
lion in 2006, before Harper’s 2007 announcement of fta negotations, to C$1.76
billion six years later in 2012, according to official Cansim statistics—although
the Bogotá embassy suggests that if Canadian investment entering Colombia via
Caribbean offshore financial centres was included in the data, fdi numbers could
be as much as three times higher.594 Using numbers that the major Canadian inves-
tors in Colombia employ themselves, Asad Ismi argues that Canadian investment
made by these investors alone was close to C$2 billion in 2012.595
Mining is at the forefront of Canada’s investment penetration of Colombia.
Of the ninety-eight extant mining properties in the country for exploration,
development, or production at the end of 2013, eighty were owned by Canadian
companies.596 This will only increase as more land is opened up for exploration in
the coming years. One estimate suggests that roughly 40 percent of the country is
being targeted by mining companies for exploration and development opportuni-
ties.597 Canadian oil and gas companies, meanwhile, have successfully participated
in a major government auction of oil and gas concessions, and in 2010, Calgary’s
Talisman, together with Ecopetrol, purchased British Petroleum’s Colombian
assets for almost C$2 billion. Canadian company Gran Tierra Energy tripled its
production in 2009.598 By 2013, Canadian oil investors accounted for 36 percent
of Colombia’s total gross oil production.599 As the Globe and Mail notes, without
any hint of irony, there is “a Canadian invasion under way in Colombia.”600
The conquest by resource companies has spurred other Canadian industries to
look to Colombia. Less by happenstance than by design, finance follows minerals.
Brookfield Asset Management announced in 2009 that it created the biggest private
equity and infrastructure fund in Colombia, which is designed to finance, and
profit from, oil pipelines among other investments.601 Scotiabank in turn bought
wholesale lending assets from Royal Bank of Scotland for C$64 million in 2010.
“Everything indicates that this Canadian bank [Scotiabank] wants to become a
major player in Latin America,” reported the Colombian weekly Semana following
the Scotiabank purchase.602 This was followed in 2011 by a C$1 billion takover of
Banco Colpatria, Colombia’s fifth largest bank, both acquisitions motivated by the
prospect of significant profits from financing the expansion of the mining and oil
sectors in the wake of the U.S. and Canadian ftas.603
The unfurling of Canadian dollars into the Colombian sectors of resource
extraction and banking is taking place in a context of unremitting violence and

dispossession. A long historical process, punctuated by the defeat of the Colombian
Left by the end of the twentieth century, and the onset in the 1980s and 1990s
of a neoliberalism armed with the legal and illegal forces of the bourgeoisie—the
military and paramilitary respectively—has laid the groundwork for the profitable
entrance of Canadian capital. Once embedded in these environs, the violence that
this capital requires as a regular feature of its accumulation process—to clear the
land of inhabitants, to crush armed insurgents, and to terrorize unarmed social
movements opposed to extraction in their territories—quickly dispels any illusions
that Canadian companies might be in any sense neutral bystanders in a quintessen-
tially Colombian armed conflict, or, worse, innocent victims of an irrational chaos
surrounding them. These companies are, rather, integrally linked to the networks
of violence in the countryside, and the configurations of elite Colombian power,
which enable extractive capitalism to flourish, whatever the costs to displaced
local communities of small-holding peasants, indigenous and Afro-Colombian
populations, and artisanal miners, not to mention the workers sent into the open
pits themselves. The history of blood and dirt that made possible the present is
the subject to which we now turn in more detail.
Historical Backdrop
Popular movements in contemporary Colombia operate in a dangerous politi-
cal terrain. Rich in petroleum, natural gas, coal, iron ore, nickel, gold, copper,
emeralds, and hydropower, the activities of multinational capital in mining and
other extractive resource industries (most importantly, oil) play a major role in
perpetuating civil war, military and para-military terror, grotesque concentrations
of wealth, and the dispossession of land and resources from peasants, miners, and
indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. Colombia, according to sociologist
Jaime Rafael Nieto López, is perhaps the only country in Latin America in which
the two characteristics of the contemporary hegemonic power of imperialism at
the global level are inextricably united. While the majority of the countries in
Latin America have endured neoliberal globalization since the last quarter of the
twentieth century—with its perverse effects in terms of inequality, poverty, social
exclusion, institutional instability, and so on—Colombia has had, additionally,
to confront an endemic war of more than half a century, which has submitted
the country further to the power of the international system and obstructed
possibilities for constructing organically and politically robust social actors and
movements.604
The struggle between the guerrillas and the state in Colombia was born out
of the historical violence of class injustice. Jorge Eliécer Giatán, leader of the
Liberal Party, was assassinated on April 9, 1948. A popular uprising overtook

Bogotá in protest against this crime. The bogotazo, as the protests became known,
inaugurated a ten-year war between Conservatives and Liberals over the riches
of the countryside, a conflict leaving over two hundred thousand Colombians
dead.605 Peasants were excluded from the Frente Nacional (National Front),
which in 1958 brought peace between rural Conservatives and the Liberals of
the cities. The exclusion of the peasants was an expression of the fact that the
war turned in no small part on their necessary displacement from the land and
their disorganization as a class.606
In order to survive in an ongoing context of violent rural dispossession, much of
the Colombian peasantry was transformed into a guerrilla army, first through the
creation of self-defence committees. Faced with persistent exclusion and perpetual
violence from above, these defence committees metamorphosed into the Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
farc) in 1966, opening up a new epoch of peasant struggle in the country. Military
offensives launched by the state to rout the guerrillas repeatedly failed and the
territorial holdings of liberated farc areas expanded.607 The state reacted on two
separate occasions with the opening of peace negotiations. Under the presidency
of Bolisario Betancur (1982–1986), a truce was established through which the
Unión Patriótica (Patriotic Union, up) was formed in 1985. Included under the
up’s umbrella were the farc and the Partido Comunista Colombiano (Colombian
Communist Party). The new electoral front won five seats in the Senate, fourteen
deputies in the National Congress, and twenty-three mayoralties. However, in
subsequent years, the up was practically exterminated by the conjoined offensive
of paramilitaries, the armed forces, and narco-traffickers.608
Under the presidency of Andrés Pastrana (1998–2002) a demilitarized zone was
granted to the farc in the Caguán river region as part of a new process of peace
negotiations. The zone encompassed four municipalities and forty-two square
miles of territory. However, at the same time, the Pastrana government signed onto
the U.S.-initiated Plan Colombia in 1999, a plan that subordinated any peaceful
orientation in the politics of Pastrana and inclined the country back toward the
rejuvenation of open warfare.609
Neoliberal modernization over the last few decades in Colombia has involved
the deepening of free market policies through fierce state intervention designed to
flexibilize the labour market; boost the flow of capital and commerce; and expedite
the privatization of key sectors of the national economy, such as telecommunica-
tions, the banking sector, the oil sector, public services, social security, education,
and health. The economic transition to a new model of development began halt-
ingly under the government of Virgilio Barco (1986–1990), and was then firmly
consolidated under the government of Gaviria (1990–1994), through his politics
of opening up and internationalizing the country’s economy. The governments

of Álvaro Uribe (2002–2010) and Juan Manuel Santos (2010-) have been no
exception in terms of conserving the basic trajectory of the political economy
and social orientation of the preceding governments under the new development
model. Indeed, Uribe and Santos have sought to deepen and extend the model
even further, as reflected in the recent Free Trade Agreement with the United
States (which came into effect in 2012), as well as one with the European Union
(which came into effect in 2013).610
By the mid-1990s, the farc, with its base in the lowland plains and jungles of
the south, and the smaller Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation
Army, eln), with a presence in the southwestern Pacific and eastern plains, were
guerrilla movements with genuine social weight, military apparatuses, and politi-
cal presence. The farc, with eighteen to twenty thousand troops, controlled 90
percent of frontier municipalities and crucial roads circling the major cities, while
the eln, with three to five thousand combatants, was a significant thorn in the
side of the ruling bloc that controlled the country.611 Neoliberal restructuring
nonetheless proceeded apace throughout the 1990s and into the twenty-first
century, intensifying the historically unequal patterns of wealth and orchestration
of terror from above.612 “It is not a mere coincidence,” contends sociologist Jasmin
Hristov, “that the implementation of the neoliberal project has been accompanied
by: enhancement in the capacity of the state’s security apparatus and paramilitary
groups; expansion of violence and human rights [violations]; and subjection of
social movements to various extermination tactics.”613 Threats, terror, and assas-
sination from military and paramilitary forces have been the common obstacles
to social movement activism for a number of decades. According to William
Avilés, “Human rights activists, political leaders on the Left, trade unionists and
the peasants perceived to be supporting the guerrilla insurgency represented the
vast majority of these victims.”614 The main guerrilla forces, the farc and the eln,
have also committed atrocities against social movement actors, but to a dramati-
cally lesser extent (see Table II).
Table II. Share of Responsibility for Non-Combatant Deaths and Forced Disappearances
1993 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Guerrillas 28% 38% 36% 23.5% 21.3% 19.6% 16.3%
Security 54% 16% 18% 7.4% 2.7% 2.4% 4.6%
Forces
Paramilitary 18% 46% 46% 69% 76% 78% 79.2%
Source: W Avilés, “Paramilitarism and Colombia’s Low Intensity Democracy,” Journal of Latin American Studies 38 (2), p
403. Derived from the Colombian Commission of Jurists.
By some estimates, Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world

for trade union activists, with 2,800 unionists killed between 1986 and 2010.615
Forty-two percent of human rights violations against unionists take place in the
mining-energy sector. Ninety-seven percent of the homicides against unionists
have been perpetrated by military and paramilitary actors, with 3 percent being
carried out by guerrillas and other armed actors.616 Three million people have been
displaced in the twenty-first century in Colombia, 2 million of whom were displaced
from mining regions.617 Levels of violence in mining zones are extraordinary. In
the municipalities of these zones, between 1995 and 2002
there have been 828 homicides, 142 forced disappearances, 117 people
injured, 71 people tortured, 355 death threats, and 150 arbitrary deten-
tions, every year. In addition there have been 433 massacres, which when
added to the homicides gives a total figure of 6,625 homicides during
those eight years.618
In the mid-2000s, the violence was compounded by an abysmal social situation.

gdp per capita was US$7,900 in 2005.619 Yet, 64 percent of the population lived
below the poverty line, 23 percent in absolute poverty. The worst rates were to be
found in mining zones.620 Eleven million of the country’s 43,593,000 citizens did
not meet their basic food requirements.621 Adequate health care, education, and
employment were exclusive privileges of a small elite.
What Hristov has called the “spectre of paramilitarism” haunted the roll-out
years of armed neoliberalism in Colombia, and facilitated repeated rounds of
peasant dispossession and land concentration.622 Colombia maintains a rural
population of close to 15 million, roughly 38 percent of the citizenry overall. Sixty
percent of the rural populace lives off of a variety of agricultural livelihoods, while
the “remaining 40 percent depend on service-related employment, artisan min-
ing, fishing, tourism, labouring in extractive multinational corporations, and other
jobs.”623 Between the 1980s and 2000s, large landowners increasingly “contracted
and sponsored paramilitaries,” to assist in depeasantization of the rural areas, and
illegal confiscation of land with ambiguous property titles.624 Between 1984 and
2003, a massive land grab was orchestrated, such that landownership of five hun-
dred hectares or more grew from 32.7 percent of Colombia’s agrarian land mass
to 62.6 percent, all of which is in the hands of a mere 0.4 percent of landowners.
Roughly 2 million small peasants own fewer than 1.3 million hectares collectively,
while 2,300 large landowners control 39 million. According to sociologist Nazih
Richani, “it is plausible that many of the 2,300 owners constitute a hybrid social
class of cattle ranchers, narco-bourgeoisie, land speculators, and agro-industrialists
who make up the reactionary configuration that staunchly resists land reform.”625
Much of the ongoing dispossession of peasants and concentration of landholdings

has been propelled by paramilitary violence. “Between 2002 and 2010,” historian
Forrest Hylton points out,
in an increasing number of regions, the paramilitary Right took over the

state by combining all forms of struggle. In 2002, their allies occupied
one-third of congressional seats, while in 2006 they won 22 out of a total of
32 departmental governorships; between 1999 and 2007, 5.5 million hec-
tares of land were usurped or forcibly abandoned. While cattle ranching
took up 40 million hectares of land and agriculture occupied 4 million.626
Under Uribe and Santos there have been new labour market reforms to make
the hiring and firing of workers easier, and public sector workers have seen their
wages stuck below the rate of inflation. General sales taxes have been increased,
hitting the poorest most severely, while royalties and taxation on national and trans-
national capital have been reduced in various ways. Alongside these trends, there
have been systematic cuts in public spending destined for health and education,
as well as reductions in resources transferred from the federal state to municipal
and departmental governments.627 As a result of neoliberal restructuring there has
been a deepening of poverty, social exclusion, and worsening inequality. In the
words of Jaime Rafael Nieto López, the country has witnessed a hollowing out of
citizenship (desciudadanización) whereby it has become impossible for large sec-
tors of the population to exercise the rights of citizenship enshrined in the 1991
Colombian Constitution.628 The social panorama in the neoliberal era has been
made that much worse by the consequences of war. The armed conflict has com-
pelled close to 5 million people to leave their lands, villages, and homes through
myriad processes of forced dispossession and massacres of civilian populations.
A recent report from Human Rights Watch also notes that the armed conflict in
Colombia has led to the abandonment of roughly 6 million hectares of farmland by
small peasants, which were then illegally usurped by large landowners. According
to Human Rights Watch, there are more forcibly displaced people in Colombia
than any other country in the world. On top of this, the conflict has allowed for the
redirection of state spending from social welfare, education, housing, health, and
productive collective projects, toward military pursuits (US$80 billion over the
course of the two Uribe administrations).629 In the last ten years much of the peas-
ant population has been dispossessed of close to 6 million hectares of productive
land by new and old landowners integrated into the narco-paramilitary networks
that cut across various regions of the country.
Uribe’s strategy of “democratic security,” inherited now by Santos, has been
predicated on the notion of deepening the war against the guerrillas until their
defeat and submission is complete. In Colombia, under the ideological guise of

democratic security, there was no longer a political armed conflict, but rather a
“terrorist threat,” which meant that there was no possibility of dialogue with the
“terrorists.”630 At the same time, the Uribe regime negotiated the ostensible demo-
bilization of right-wing paramilitary groups that had been organized under the
umbrella organization Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (Self-Defence Units of
Colombia). This demobilization was predicated on granting paramilitaries immu-
nity from their crimes and protection of the loot that they had acquired through the
blood and fire of dispossessing peasant communities from the rural areas.631 Uribe’s
program of democratic security struck tremendous blows against the farc. Many
of the farc’s rural fronts were dismantled or reduced, and its urban structures in
the principal cities were demolished. It is estimated that between 2008 and 2009
close to 12,700 rank-and-file members of the farc surrendered to the authorities,
as well as more than a thousand mid-ranking cadre. This forced a retreat of the
farc to the border regions, such as the departments of Nariño, Putumayo, Cauca,
and Arauca. Territorial dispersion significantly reduced the combat capabilities of
the guerrillas. While the farc has been effectively neutralized, the eln has also
been reduced to passive resistance, avoiding military combat with the Colombian
armed forces when it can.632
Despite inspiring resistance by Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities
against violent dispossession over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s, as well
as struggles by workers and the urban poor, the panorama remained bleak in the
first decade of the twenty-first century:
Militarily strong Left insurgencies, imperially supported police and

armed forces, and a semi-autonomous, increasingly powerful coalition of
private right-wing narco-armies weakened the radical-popular movement.
Patterns of counterinsurgent terror against civilians…were reinforced
during the cold war, and repackaged under the anti-terrorist rubric after
11 September 2001. Not for the first time, in response to struggles for
peace and justice, terror and official amnesia have become the lingua
franca of Colombian politics and society.633
The important points to emphasize, from the anti-imperialist perspective

advanced in this book, are that Canadian mining activity in Colombia is pres-
ently resurgent, and that such activity is deeply implicated in the war economy of
violence and dispossession from which it benefits. This emphasis is especially vital
to develop in light of the Canadian state’s consistent manipulation of the political
realities in contemporary Latin America. On a visit to the region in 2009, Prime
Minister Harper made a thinly veiled allusion to Hugo Chávez’s government in
Venezuela, warning that the rest of Latin America has to avoid a return to “the
syndrome of economic nationalism, political authoritarianism and class warfare.”
By contrast, embracing Uribe’s record in Colombia, Harper stated,
When we see a country like Colombia that has decided it has to address
its social, political and economic problems in an integrated manner, that
wants to embrace economic freedom, that wants to embrace political
democracy and human rights and social development, then we say, “We’re
there to encourage you and we’re there to help you.”634
Indeed, in 2011 the Canadian Council for the Americas, the principal organiz-
ation focusing on Canada’s foreign economic relations with Latin America, named
Uribe “statesman of the year in 2011”—the same year it gave Peter Munck, the
Canadian mining magnate of Barrick Gold infamy, a lifetime achievement award.
According to Hylton, “Uribe’s [administration was] a semi-authoritarian form of
parliamentary government that [did] not respect individual rights or international
law.”635 Uribe was the preferred candidate of the paramilitaries in both the 2002
and 2006 elections. Prior to ascending to the presidency, Uribe spent two years
as governor of Antioquia, two years in which the anti-guerrilla militias known as
Convivirs (Rural Vigilance Cooperatives) displaced roughly two hundred thousand
peasants.636 In the banana zones of that department the homicide rate increased
under the governorship of Uribe: “in 1995, it doubled to 800; in 1996, 1,200; and
in 1997, 700. In 1998, the year after Uribe’s departure, it dipped to 300.”637
Beginning in 2012, during the first government of Juan Manuel Santos (2010–
2014), political developments offered up the possibility of a general accord being
reached between guerrillas and the state, the termination of conflict, and the
construction of a stable and lasting peace which would end sixty years of war.638
The balance of forces has shifted profoundly over the decades since the farc took
up armed resistance, as Colombian society has been radically transformed. Today,
the majority of the population is urban, and the principal demand of the popular
classes has shifted from land to housing. The urban populations want an end to the
conflict. New urban social movements have erupted in the principal cities, none
of which are controlled by Liberals or Conservatives.
Another development has to do with transformations internal to the country’s
dominant classes. The preferred model of accumulation in the twenty-first century
involves the crude extraction of natural resources—hydrocarbons, mining miner-
als, and agro-industrial mono-crops—rather than the older models of agriculture,
rooted in peasant exploitation. The vision of the leading edge of the ruling classes—
whose fullest expression today is President Santos—is that the state must divert
some of its resources presently locked in a massive war budget toward the building
of infrastructure designed to facilitate the acceleration of accumulation through the

extraction of natural resources, via the foreign direct investment of multinational
corporations.639 According to the analysis of Uruguayan sociologist Raúl Zibechi,
the de-escalation of the open war between the state and the guerrillas—both
the farc and the eln—has made visible a new war-in-formation, the one being
waged by multinational capital against indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples
in the countryside. The Colombian Constitution of 1991 recognizes the ancestral
territories of Afro-descendents and indigenous populations under the designation
“reserves” (resguardos). As a result, six hundred indigenous reserves have been cre-
ated, occupying a third of Colombian territory. Many of these are located precisely
in the areas in which the expansion of extractive capitalism is destined to target,
making indigenous and Afro-Colombian populations frontline antagonists of
the new war-in-formation. Indeed, by 2011 over 80 percent of legally-recognized
indigenous reserve land already had mining concessions, granted by the central
government, within their territories, and oil development projects had targeted a
further 9 million hectares of indigenous reserves. 640
Over the last several decades, the Colombian armed forces, backed by the
U.S., have been strengthened organizationally and technologically, and have
vastly improved their capabilities in combat and surveillance. At the same time,
the farc have been weakened militarily, while also losing much of their politi-
cal legitimacy as a result of a shifting demographic to the cities and alienating
relations with the rural indigenous communities that remain. In the present
moment, the end of war would not signify peace for the popular movements
in Colombia, but rather the continuation of their struggle in a more favourable
scenario. During the earlier periods of open conflict, facing repression and death,
many movements were still capable of carrying off huge mobilizations—such
as the Minga Social y Comunitaria (Communitarian and Social Cooperative
Gathering) in 2008, and the establishment of the Congress of Peoples, and other
social-movement collectives on a national scale. In the current conjuncture, the
indigenous struggle will continue, defending territory against the multinationals.
The “peace” of extractivism, according to Zibechi, is inaugurating a new cycle
of struggles from below.641
One signal of this potential new cycle came with the national agrarian strike
of August 2013.642 The strike mobilized thousands of peasants across the country
and converged around a set of demands that spoke to the overlapping interests of
truck drivers, small-holder coffee growers, artisanal miners, and a wide array of
small-holding peasant producers of different food crops who have faced a crisis
in reproducing themselves amid the neoliberal transformation of Colombian
agriculture since the early 1990s. The various sectors involved in the protests were
able to articulate themselves organizationally through the formation of the Mesa
Agropecuaria y Popular de Interlocución y Acuerdos (Roundtable for Dialogue

and Agreement among Popular Agrarian Producers).643
The Santos government responded initially with repression (12 dead, 4 missing,
385 injured, 262 detained, and 660 cases of human rights violations), and then
shifted to a shuffle of his cabinet (a cosmetic move, because new general elections
were just around the corner), along with other token gestures and stalling tactics.644
The strike held firm nonetheless for over four weeks, and was also significant insofar
as it brought together in a powerful new synthesis indigenous and Afro-Colombian
struggle, within a wider constellation of popular forces in movement. In addition
to these relatively novel bridges of solidarity across oppressed peoples, different
economic sectors were also involved. While the small-holding peasantry and
the landless were at the heart of the strike in August, their actions were actually
preceded in July that year by the protests of artisanal miners. The nine principal
demands of the small-scale miners included the stipulation that the Colombian
state must provide official recognition of small and medium-sized artisanal mining
through the formational of a new mining code, such that the police and military
would cease to repress the day-to-day activities at the heart of their livelihoods.
They also demanded that there be official recognition and respect in the new mining
code for indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities engaged in artisanal mining,
and a simultaneous freezing of concessions to multinational mining corporations
within indigenous and Afro-Colombian territories.645
Special Violence of Extraction

If large-scale mining for export was already an important feature of national devel-
opment strategy in Colombia in the 1990s, it was really only in the 2000s that the
pace of extractive capitalism accelerated sufficiently to transform the landscape
of the countryside in earnest.646 The new era was inaugurated with a new mining
code in 2001, followed by a concerted effort by the Colombian government to
shape a new regime of accumulation under Uribe’s successive administrations
(2002–2010). Uribe’s twin strategic horizons for the advancement of mining
involved, on the one hand, a series of legal reforms to ensure an attractive juridical
environment and a flexible labour force for foreign direct investment. On the other
hand, it involved a policy of state and paramilitary violence—under the rubric of
“democratic security”—so as to free specific geographic zones of their populations
for purposes of natural resource extraction when necessary, and to otherwise crush,
or at least tame, resistance emerging from those popular sectors affected by the
advance of multinational mining capital into their territories: indigenous peoples;
Afro-Colombian and peasant communities; small-scale artisanal miners; and, once
the mines were established, the workers that pumped their veins.647
The speed with which mining took hold of the imagination of state leaders and
foreign investors was impressive. Between 2005 and 2010, the contribution to
total exports made by mining and oil together tripled, accounting for almost 50
percent of exports at the end of that period. In absolute terms, this translates in
mining and oil exports moving from a value of US$19 billion in 2005 to US$39.8
billion in 2010. Private investment, almost entirely multinational capital, in mining
exploration tripled between 2005 and 2010, and the area of Colombian territory
conceded for exploration and/or exploitation increased by four times. Almost a
third of all foreign direct investment between 2004 and 2009 was in the mining
sector.648 Foreign direct investment in the mining and energy sectors combined
rose by ten times between 2002 and 2010, moving from 42 to 57 percent of total
foreign direct investment, or from US$466 million to US$4.5 billion in value.649
More than 8.4 million of Colombia’s 114 million hectares of territory are licensed
for mining exploration, while nearly 6 million hectares are already licensed for
mining exploitation, and 37 million are licensed for oil exploration.650 Canadian
capital is a whale in this sea. By the end of 2011, Canadian companies accounted
for over 65 percent of all companies engaged in mining exploration in the country,
and more than 75 percent of all firms exploring for oil and gas.651
The shift to a regime of accumulation rooted in mining and oil extraction by
multinational capital has quite fundamentally reconfigured the socio-ecology of
what had been relatively remote geographic zones of the country, where small-
scale artisanal mining and small-holder peasant farming persisted, where poverty
levels were well above the country’s average, and where the presence of basic state
infrastructure and social services was sparse. The social transformation of the
countryside involved in the expansion and intensification of extractive capital-
ism necessitated violence, because it pitted the integrally conflictual interests of
multinational capital against those of local communities sitting on the deposits of
natural wealth.
The long-standing armed conflict in Colombia has provided a useful cover for
the employment of state and paramilitary violence in potential zones of mining
and oil extraction on behalf of multinational capital. The dynamic typically goes
something like this: The corporation demands “security” for their investments,
which means, in the first instance, the clearing of the relevant geographic area of
insurgent groups in order to avoid attacks on the equipment or personnel of large-
scale mines. However, the demands for “security” and “protection” also facilitate a
violence that far exceeds the routing of armed insurgent groups. The flexibility with
which opposition of any kind is associated by the state with the guerrilla movements
is notorious.652 Under the mantle of security, virtually any expressions of resistance
by local communities to the presence of mining and oil corporations can be dealt
with using force from above, once the lines between armed insurgency and social
movement mobilization have been sufficiently blurred. There is no innocence on

the part of multinational mining and oil companies in this process. According to
the Colombian sociologist Yohana Cuervo Sotelo:
In this way, when a transnational company situates itself in a territory of

a country in conflict like Colombia, it represents itself as being a victim
of that conflict, as a neutral actor, and it fervently insists on the interven-
tion of the state and its military forces, to carry out actions to guarantee
the stability of its investment. The reality is that the necessity to provide
security and stability to large mining companies, or, to create propitious
conditions for their entrance without large-scale resistance, and to recon-
figure these regions in accordance with the logics of extraction, is what
in the end drives and augments the implementation of violent measures
on the part of the state.653
The Colombian Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement points out

that there is a significant presence of military and paramilitary forces in the mining
regions, and not surprisingly, according to the National Mining Company Minercol
Workers Union, 87 percent of displaced persons have fled mining regions, and 80
percent of human rights violations occur in these zones.654
Indeed, instrumental to Uribe’s “democratic security” strategy was the dedica-
tion of huge numbers of military troops to extractive zones in order to protect
the infrastructure of the mining and oil economies. Under Uribe, the defence
budget was spiked to 5.6 percent of gdp by 2008, from 2.2 percent in 1990. As
noted above, the connections of his regime to the paramilitaries, and their role in
the repression systematically carried out in areas of extractive capitalism are well
established. A full third of the lower house of Congress and a third of the Senate
during the Uribe period were later investigated for links to paramilitary organi-
zations.655 “There is a particularly controversial characteristic of the entrance of
transnational corporations and the mining boom in the country,” writes Cuervo
Sotelo, “the utilization of violence, militarization and repression as a mechanism
to ensure foreign investment, which is to say, to carry out territorial appropriation
on behalf of the corporations.”656
As we discuss in Chapter 9, as a result of the actions of both Liberal and
Conservative governments since the 1990s, Canada is becoming more deeply
implicated in Colombia’s security apparatus, which benefits Canadian capital, both
in Colombia, as well as much of the rest of Latin America.
Canadian Investments and Grassroots Resistance

The second phase of the Canadian investment invasion, rolling out since the mid-
2000s, has predictably faced opposition and led to violent confrontation between
opponents and government and company security forces. Clearly anticipating an
anti-mining push back, the Colombian government preemptively advertised to
investor groups in New York, Calgary, Toronto, London, and Sydney, among other
destinations, that it would provide security in the form of military battalions for
companies during their exploration activities in the mining and oil and gas sec-
tors.657 Military security, in other words, was an incentive for Canadian and other
multinational oil and gas companies to enter the country.
Human rights organizations and trade unionists in Colombia have reported
their concerns over Canadian companies’ complicity in atrocities carried out in the
mining industry since the first major wave of investment in the 1990s. Conquistador
Mines Ltd. was identified by activists, for example, because it was exploring gold
deposits in southern Bolívar, where it was well known that “guerrillas and paramili-
taries have battled for sympathies of local residents,” and where human rights groups
argue “massacres carried out by paramilitaries have sown terror among peasants
and [artisanal] miners who are opposed to foreign firms’ activities.”658 Amnesty
International and Friends of the Earth also “raised the alarm about alleged abuses
surrounding…Canadian projects.”659 The Toronto Star reported in 1999, “These
companies are functioning inside a civil war zone, a war that has everything to do
with wealth and power. Nobody—least of all the foreign gold miners—are [sic]
neutral.”660 One report, stemming from a 1997 Canadian human rights delega-
tion to Colombia of trade unionists and church members, reached the following
damning conclusion:
The presence of Conquistador Mines and its interest in the South of

Bolívar appears to have encouraged the murder of local community lead-
ers and the massive displacement of peasant miners and their families. The
other Canadian companies in Colombia are not directly linked to human
or labour rights violations, but they still benefit from the “economics of
repression.” The systematic massacres and displacements of Colombian
citizens by a combined military-paramilitary assault have the dual effect
of creating a vast pool of cheaper labour and giving foreign companies
access to valuable natural resources they may not otherwise have been
able to obtain. Repression serves to greatly reduce the price and organ-
ized resistance of labour and clears the land of people who would resist
the takeover of Colombian natural wealth by multinational capital.661
Multinational corporations functioning in the extractive resource sectors in

Colombia in the 1990s and 2000s have commonly turned to paramilitaries for
“security” purposes. “Given that private property rights [are] contested in much
of Colombia,” notes Forrest Hylton, “it is not surprising that foreign corporations
[pay] protection money to paramilitaries as a ‘capitalist insurance policy’.”662 On
more than one occasion, Canadian mining companies hired the notorious American
mercenary aviation firm, AirScan, for security purposes. AirScan’s employees, “have
been linked to a bungled 1998 airstrike on rebel forces in Colombia that killed
18 unarmed civilians, including nine children.”663 The Canadian Department of
Foreign Affairs stated in a 2002 report that Colombia offered rich commercial
opportunities in mining, limited only by security concerns: “The report concludes,
‘The challenge is to balance the commercial opportunities with a wise intelligent
approach to personal security’.”664 Ken Luckhardt, a national representative for the
Canadian Auto Workers, expressed the sentiments of many human rights and trade
union activists when he argued in 2002, “If Canadian mining companies require
military forces to operate, they shouldn’t be there.”665
The two Uribe administrations (2002–2010) had a lot to do with the resur-
gence of investor confidence, after the relative waning of the first wave of Canadian
mining interests in Colombia by the close of the 1990s. Business press reports
during the Uribe administrations noted that, “Mr. Uribe…has implemented
some of the most competitive taxation conditions in the world, not just in Latin
America.”666 Peter Baxter, exploration manager of Vancouver’s Bema Gold Corp.,
was impressed with Uribe after seeing a presentation by him at a mining conference
in Medellín: “Colombia is a lot better than I thought. Seeing President Uribe was
impressive.”667 The reasons for the positive reception of Uribe by multinational
mining capital were straightforward. At the same conference in Medellín, Uribe
declared: “Colombia will be attractive for investors.…Colombia is ready to be a
major mining country.”668
Community resistance to large-scale mining and oil extraction in Colombia
began to pick up pace in the 2000s. Opposition to Canadian companies is
drawn from indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, small farmers, and
environmental activists who fear ecological disaster in the wake of massive min-
ing development. But movements of resistance also include small-scale artisanal
miners. Many of the areas Canadian companies are entering have been mined for
decades, and in some instances centuries, by small-scale miners trying to eke out
a living in impoverished and long-neglected regions of the country. State infra-
structure and social service provisions are sparse in such districts. Describing
small-scale mining practices as illegal despite their long history, and violating
their property rights, Canadian companies have put pressure on the Colombian
government to take action to defend Canadian investments. This paid dividends
in April 2013 when the Colombian airforce—which, as we note below, has trained
in Canada—bombed artisanal miners in Antioquia and Caldas, locations where

Canadian companies are looking to expand.669
Indigenous movements, artisanal small-scale miners, Afro-Colombian commu-
nities, environmentalists, and small peasant farmers have engaged in various tactics,
such as strikes, petitions, blockades, and direct action of increasing intensity, in an
effort to prevent, or at least to slow, the expansion of multinational mining capital
in their territories. When Juan Manuel Santos assumed the presidency in 2010 he
faced a new phenomenon of popular consultations in local communities affected
by mining. The phenomenon of popular consultations with local populations about
whether or not to allow mining or oil exploration and development in the relevant
municipal areas has been taking off for the last decade across much of South and
Central America. Beginning in 2012, the tactic of formalized, popular consultation
has also been advancing in Colombia. The present political conjuncture in the
country, with a relative decline in violence, and peace talks taking place between
guerrillas and state officials in Havana, Cuba, has meant that the organization of
such experiments in local democracy has been less dangerous to carry out.
National legislation from 1994 seems to back the authority of municipalities
to conduct such consultations and to implement their results. Article 55 of Law
134, in particular, indicates that “the decision taken by the people in a popular
referendum is obligatory.”670 However, after three municipalities in the southeast
of the department of Antioquia passed anti-mining agreements in 2013 following
popular consultations, the Ministry of Mines and Energy at the federal level began
to worry. The national government, under President Juan Manual Santos, issued
decree 0934 on May 9, 2013, which intended to clarify the implementation of
Article 37 of the existing Mining Code. Through this decree, the Minister of Mines
and Energy was able to establish that no local or regional authority has the remit
to exclude mining activity from its area—that is, no municipal or regional body
has the authority to regulate mining, which remains a federal duty of the national
government. The decree, contradicting as it does the 1994 legislation, was being
challenged in Constitutional Court as of mid-2014.671 Popular consultations are
merely the latest in a long line of techniques employed by communities in resistance
to which the Colombian state and Canadian mining capital have had to respond
in myriad ways.
The following sections cast light on a number of specific Canadian companies
involved in the extractive resource sectors of the Colombian economy today. Each
corporation has encountered particular expressions of opposition to its presence.
The sample list of companies dealt with here could easily be expanded, but it does
provide a representative illustration of dynamics that stretch out much more widely
across the oil and gas and mining sectors.
Pacific Rubiales
The second largest oil company operating in Colombia, Pacific Rubiales Energy
(pre), is headquartered in Canada. Pacific Rubiales is an oil and gas company based
in Toronto, with assets throughout different parts of Latin America. In September
2013, it struck one of Canada’s largest energy deals of the year when it agreed to pay
US$935 million to buy Petrominerales Ltd. This move will provide Pacific Rubiales
considerably more weight in Colombia and Peru. The deal with Petrominerales
(also a Canadian corporation, with its head office in Calgary) will also give Pacific
Rubiales access to light oil with which it can dilute its extant heavy oil deposits,
allowing the company to use a pipeline to get its heavy oil to market, rather than
much more expensive transport by truck. As part of this new acquisition process,
Petrominerales is, meanwhile, buying out its partner in a Brazilian oil exploration
project, allowing Pacific Rubiales to create a new exploration and production
company in Brazil with roughly C$100 million to operate with immediately.672
Pacific Rubiales was only able to secure its first oil concessions in Colombia
after security forces swept through and cleared populations that were standing in
the way of extraction. It was a veritable campaign of terror and assassination.673
A 2009 article in Forbes magazine stresses the importance of the assault on the
guerrillas, and the displacement of resident populations as a backdrop to energy
sector expansion in the case of Pacific Rubiales:
Exxon abandoned the Rubiales field in the 1980s. Until recently, pro-
duction there was constrained by how much could be trucked out—an
armada of 1,500 tanker trucks hauled about 60,000 barrels of crude per
day to civilization, much of it along dirt roads. Pacific Rubiales and ana-
lysts say that the region, once flush with rebels, is secure, and none of the
trucks have been attacked.674
Interestingly, the chief executive officer of Pacific Rubiales is Ronald Pantin, a

Caracas-born, Stanford-educated oil baron who cut his political and economic teeth
as a member of the senior management team of the Venezuelan state oil company
pdvsa. He held that position until the government of Hugo Chávez defeated the
oil lockout that pdvsa’s senior management orchestrated in 2002–2003, in an effort
to destabilize the democratically-elected administration in Venezuela through the
debilitation of the country’s oil industry. Claims persist to this day that Pacific
Rubiales, under Pantin’s direction, is financing right-wing opposition to Chávez’s
successor as Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, although Pantin insists that,
“the allegations are absurd and have no factual basis.”675 Indeed, most of the manage-
ment team of Pacific Rubiales are former pdvsa officials who were sacked by the
Chávez government once their role in the destabilizing lockout had been revealed.
According to John Galante, a Latin America energy analyst at esai Energy, a

consultancy, “The company benefited especially from a combination of energy
sector reform in Colombia, access to capital through its listing in Toronto and the
integration of know how from Venezuelan expatriates.”676 “The situation that has
occurred in Venezuela, with Mr. Chávez throwing out the good management at
pdvsa, is fortunate for us,” according to Andrés Jiménez, head of equity research
at Colombia-based investment firm Interbolsa. “They are people with a lot of
expertise, especially expertise that you need to extract the heavy oil in Colombia.”
As early as 2009, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (cibc) listed Pacific
Rubiales as a “sector outperformer.” According to a report from cibc analyst Robert
Pare published that year, cibc “believe[s] the company continues to offer further
upside on strong operational momentum and ongoing drilling activity.”677
Pacific Rubiales began extracting 25,000 barrels of oil per day when it began
operations in 2007. By 2013, that pace had risen to an estimated 250,000 bar-
rels per day. Its activity was part of Colombia’s more general acceleration in
oil production over the 2000s, solidifying the country as the fourth largest oil
producer in Latin America, after Venezuela, Mexico, and Brazil. According to
the Financial Times:
Timing has also contributed to the company’s success. In the past decade
Colombia has ridden a commodities boom. At the same time the govern-
ment has enacted a security crackdown that has put its guerrilla insurgents
on the back foot—though they are still active. Resource companies have
been able to operate in territories that were previously in the crossfire.678
Pantin has confidence in his Canadian investors and thus bold plans for expan-
sion in Colombia and elsewhere in the region. “Canadian investors are comfortable
with exploration risk,” and as a consequence the corporation’s “greatest investments
will be in exploration in the coming 5 to 10 years, this year Pacific Rubiales will
be investing $405m in exploration.”679 “Pacific Rubiales and its management team
changed the dynamic of the oil sector in Colombia,” according to Rupert Stebbings,
vice-president of equity sales at Bancolombia. “They are agile, know exactly what
they are doing when it comes to heavy oil and know how to exercise their plans
and take seriously their responsibilities on all aspects, not just getting oil out of
the ground at any cost.” From another perspective, the farc have labeled Pacific
Rubiales a “transnational vampire.”680
The initial displacement of people for the establishment of the oil field was
followed by conflict between the company and its workers in Campo Rubiales,
located in the eastern department of Meta. In the summer of 2011, the workers
struck against terrible working conditions, including in some cases eighteen-hour
work days and forty straight days without time off, unpaid salaries, and unhealthy
work environments. The strikers were met with a large police and military
presence, and the requisite death threats.681 The strike of ten thousand workers
took place in Puerto Gaitán, and was sparked initially by the firing of over one
thousand workers who the strikers demanded be reinstated, while also insisting
on the improvement of working conditions and better wages for all workers.682
Pacific Rubiales shares in Toronto fell as much as 5.4 percent during one day of
protests in late October 2011. The Colombian government sent four hundred
additional police to guard the oil fields of Pacific Rubiales in Meta. The troops
were sent when the company repeatedly threatened to suspend operations unless
reinforcements were deployed to quell what it said were violent demonstrations.
“Security forces have been reinforced by way of the National Police. A general law
has been sent to take command of police activities with very specific instruction
to arrest anyone who breaks the law,” claimed Mauricio Cárdenas, Minister of
Mining and Energy at the time.683
Clashes between protesters and police took place in September 2011 at the oil
fields of Pacific Rubiales, forcing the shutdown of its Rubiales and Quifa oil fields in
Meta. At the time of the strike, the two fields were producing an average of 225,000
barrels of crude per day, roughly one-quarter of the 953,000 barrels the country
averaged in daily output in August that year. The government sent in hundreds of
anti-riot police to Puerto Gaitán, the biggest town near the rural area where the
oil fields are located. The Colombian National Police also declared a curfew in the
town. The police were called in once protesters had set up blockades that prevented
company vehicles from entering and leaving the oil fields. pre was instrumental
in having the police escalate the conflict given that the company insisted it had
broken no Colombian laws, and therefore was justified in repeatedly calling on the
Colombian coercive apparatus to restore order and production in the region. The
protests first began as early as July 2011, when the oil fields were first shutdown,
and there were periodic blockades and clashes between the July and September
actions. Pacific Rubiales was not the only Canadian company targeted. Earlier
in September 2011, Petrominerales, the abovementioned Canadian oil corpora-
tion subsequently purchased by Pacific Rubiales, was briefly forced to shut down
production in two fields in nearby Casanare state after residents from proximate
communities blockaded roads to protest against pollution and heavy truck traffic
on rural roads connected to the company’s oil fields.684
Dave Coles, President of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union
of Canada (the cep and Canadian Autoworkers were replaced by Unifor in 2013),
participated in a seventeen-person Canadian delegation to investigate the activities
of Pacific Rubiales in July 2012. During his visit, he was a juror at a preliminary
hearing of what was called the Popular Tribunal Against Extractive Policies in
Colombia. The tribunal took place close to the oil fields of Pacific Rubiales near
Puerto Gaitán. According to Coles:
The testimony was heart-wrenching. Representatives of indigenous

communities told the Tribunal about how oil exploration on their lands
had forced them to move to makeshift villages in housing constructed of
plastic sheeting, cardboard and sticks. Women from outlying communi-
ties showed the jury bottles of orange and charcoal-coloured water, which
they said was from their local water source, a river carrying effluent from
pre’s extractive process. Union officials described the living conditions
of workers forced to rotate off their shift to catch a few hours of sleep in
a bed occupied by three other workers on different shifts.685
Coles reports that during the strike in the summer of 2011:
Colombian Senator Alexander López, who testified at the tribunal, said

he was blocked by public security forces from freely travelling on a pub-
lic road to the Rubiales oil fields. López concluded that pre’s actions in
Colombia warranted their expulsion from the country.
There were also anonymous death threats levied at key activists among the workers
involved in the strike, directed both toward them and their families. In a context of
generalized right-wing paramilitary terror against trade unionists in Colombia at
the time, these threats could not be dismissed as idle chatter. Coles explains how
the Canadian delegation
brought the information we had learned about pre’s abuses to the

Canadian embassy in Bogotá. But officials there were nonplussed, say-
ing they meet monthly with their “customers” such as pre. In fact, the
ambassador’s representative expressed more concern about pre’s lack of
interest in Canadian Export Development Corporation financing than
in the company’s social practices.686
In 2013, workers initiated a campaign against what they claimed was an effort
by the company to break the union by blacklisting members from work. Ninety
percent of the company’s approximately five thousand-person workforce was
fired for supporting the union. Unionists also reported receiving death threats for
their activism—something that, predictably, received no mention in Canada’s fta
human rights reports.687
If the situation for Colombians living in oil and mining zones is evermore
unbearable, the environs for capital are something approaching paradise. Pacific
Rubiales is hardly unique in its plans to expand operations still further in the
country. In the Conference of Oil and Gas of Latin America in April 2012, in
Punta del Este (Uruguay), Colombia was awarded first place status as the country
with the most attractive investment climate for the hydrocarbons sector, beating
out Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela. In 2013, Pacific Rubiales sunk roughly US$7.1
billion into exploration and development.688 In 2014, the company expects that its
investments in the country will surpass US$2 billion, and it hopes to double the
number of barrels of oil it extracts per day over the next five years.689
Talisman
The Calgary-based oil giant Talisman has been facing resistance for several years
as a consequence of the company’s drilling for oil on indigenous reserves, located
in regions that have experienced violent repression since the 1990s by paramili-
tiaries, and which have been under periodic military occupation, funded, in part,
by oil companies themselves.690 Ecopetrol, the Colombian state oil company,
announced in December 2013 that it had discovered oil in two deposits in the
department of Meta (an area in which Talisman is engaged in joint contracts with
Ecopetrol). The new deposits mean that Ecopetrol’s proven reserves are now 40
million barrels richer than their previous count of 1,877,000. Colombia, it should
be remembered, is the fourth largest producer of hydrocarbons in Latin America,
with known reserves of 2,377,000 barrels. The problem for Canadian companies
and the Colombian state is growing opposition to oil exploration and extraction.
In the area of Meta where the new deposits were discovered, direct action against
companies—which the state has labelled “terrorist attacks”—numbered 163 in
2013 alone.691
Meanwhile, community anti-oil plebiscites and blockades of exploratory
activity in the area went from 308 in 2012 to 432 in 2013. The communities of
Guamal and Catilla, near the municipality of Acacías in the department of Meta,
where a separate Ecopetrol-Talisman joint operation is located, recently carried
out a two-hundred-day occupation in order to prevent Ecopetrol from exploring
a potential oil site that they thought would result in negative effects for a river that
services all three communities. In a popular consultation in the municipality of
Tauramena, 4,426 people voted against oil exploration in their hydrocarbon-rich
area, against 151 residents who voted in favour. In response, the government said
they would negotiate, but stressed that what is under the subsoil of this community
is the property of the nation. Environmental consciousness, a phenomenon quite
underdeveloped in Colombian social movements until recently, has now become a
central priority in many municipalities struggling against hydrocarbon exploration
and exploitation involving joint contract operations between Canadian oil firms
and the Colombian state company.692
Talisman and Ecopetrol are so far undeterred by environmental opposition to
their planned oil operations in Acacías, in which Ecopetrol owns 55 percent of

the production contract, next to 45 for Talisman. “We will move forward to agree
on a development plan and to obtain the necessary environmental licences. This
important milestone reflects a significant step forward toward the realization of the
potential of our company in Colombia,” Talisman president Hal Kvisle reported to
the Colombian media in June 2014. For his part, the president of Ecopetrol, Javier
Gutiérrez, affirmed that, “Acacías constitutes one of the biggest exploratory suc-
cesses of the last few years in Colombia, and clearly shows the potential of heavy oil
in the eastern plains.” The department of Mata, it is important to note, is a region
of fragile plains and diverse jungle areas in eastern Colombia.693
Gran Colombia
In the town of Marmato, in the department of Caldas, the Canadian mining com-
pany Gran Colombia (after its merger with Medoro Resources) has operated as
Colombia’s biggest underground gold and silver producer. At the time of writing,
Gran Colombia is hoping to move an entire village and blow up a mountain to
build a gold mine in the area. According to the company’s assessment, the Marmato
project is potentially one of the richest gold deposits in the world. The drastic
extraction technique is being proposed for an area in which steep hillsides, heavy
rainfall, and abundance of waste rock have already increased the risk of landslides.694
The development would involve displacing five thousand inhabitants, and has
generated concerted resistance, particularly on the part of small-scale artisanal
miners who have worked the veins of the mountain for decades.695 Company
manager Juan Carlos Santos, a relative of president Santos, stated blithely that “we
can compensate them with our checkbook.” Reflecting on the possibility that vil-
lagers might have the temerity to resist petty buyouts, he stressed matter-of-factly
that “when a country like Colombia needs to exploit areas, and our country is full
of indigenous and Afro-Colombian people, we have to think in the big picture.”696
The big picture for Gran Colombia, in other words, does not include land rights
for indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples. Adding to the tension surround-
ing Gran Colombia’s plans, in September 2011 the body of Father José Reinel
Restrepo was discovered.697 An active mine opponent and leader of the Comité
Cívico Prodefensa de Marmato (Civic Committee in Defence of Marmato), he had
criticized the plans to displace the community and the “Canadian imperialism”
behind it.698 With potentially 11.8 million ounces of gold deposits at stake, Gran
Colombia is unlikely to leave quietly.699
In July 2011, a union leader working for Gran Colombia at another project in
El Campo was assassinated.700 In early 2014, in the northeast of the department
of Antioquia, conflicts with Gran Colombia persisted. Four hundred protesters—
artisanal miners, their families, and sympathizers—gathered to march through the
streets of the city of Segovia, calling for the Canadian mining corporation to respect
the labour rights of 500 workers, 340 of whom are members of the Sindicato de
Trabajadores Mineros de Segovia y Remedios (Union of Mining Workers of Segovia
and Remedios). The immediate company in question is Estrategias y Minas, but this
company is ultimately doing the contract work for Gran Colombia. According to
the workers, with the historic fall in gold prices over the course of 2013—28 per-
cent—the corporation suspended its mining operations in Segovia and Remedios,
in violation of its contract with the workforce. The company is now asking workers
to voluntarily rescind the contract, with the possibility of being hired back on to
work in the near future, but for lower wages and benefits.701
Partly in response to the controversies surrounding their activities, some
Canadian mining companies have fostered connections with political elites in
Colombia, hiring former politicians with important political ties to help advance
their interests. Gran Colombia is a good example. The company’s board of directors
includes former Minister of Mines and Energy, Hernán Martínez, who during his
tenure issued the most mining permits in Colombian history, according to former
Colombian Environment Minister and head of the U.N. Forestry Forum, Manuel
Rodríguez Becerra. Gran Colombia’s former president was María Consuelo Araujo,
who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and has two family members (a sibling and
a parent), both politicians, who have been investigated for links to paramilitaries.702
Eco Oro/Greystar
The Canadian multinational mining company Eco Oro (formerly Greystar) has
invested US$220 million in the last six years in search of gold in the municipality
of California, near Bucaramanga, the capital city of the department of Santander
in northeastern Colombia. The various projects proposed have not yet taken off
because part of the potential mining site overlaps with the moorland habitat of
Santurbán. The operations of the company have sparked reaction from communi-
ties in the area who fear the environmental consequences for adjacent rivers and
the wider ecology. The company still awaits definitive delimitation of the borders
of the moorland habitat by the Ministry of the Environment.703
The mountainous plateau of Santurbán, which crosses the borders of the
departments of North Santander and Santander, has in many ways become one
of Colombia’s most important battlegrounds between mining companies and the
state, on the one hand, and anti-mining environmentalists, on the other. Through
their exploration activities, Eco Oro discovered what could be one of the most
important deposits of gold on the planet. The company calculates that it could
extract 240 tons of the metal if its plans are allowed to proceed. However, in order
to get at the gold, it proposes to open a massive hole in the mountain range, two
kilometres long and one kilometre wide. The idea that this might transpire has led
to massive marches of resistance in Bucaramanga, and has set off alarm bells for
environmentalists across the country. The principal ecological problem has to do
with the fact that these mountains are the originary source point for the fresh water
of huge tracts of the country. It is from this mountainous plateau that 70 percent
of water consumed by Colombians originates. It is also believed that roughly 2
million Santandereanos (residents of the department of Santander) depend on
Santurbán for their access to water.704 Another concern of community residents
has been the fact that Eco Oro’s original proposal noted the company’s expecta-
tion that the mine would use forty tons of cyanide per day during the extraction
process. In response to these concerns, the Committee for the Defence of Water
and the Santurban Páramo managed to gather 75,000 signatures for a petition pro-
testing against Eco Oro’s presence, another factor stalling the company’s forward
momentum in the region.705
A separate petition signed by Colombia’s most important environmental activ-
ists and leaders was sent to President Santos in June 2014. The letter demanded
a new mining code and an immediate moratorium on the granting of titles and
environmental licenses to mining corporations. One of the key targets of the peti-
tion was Eco Oro’s Santurbán initiative. Never has a mining project in Colombia
generated a controversy as great as that which is ongoing in Santurbán. The inten-
sity of social pressure around this project over the years was the reason Greystar
retracted its original application for an environmental license several years ago, and
changed its name to Eco Oro. Most significantly, the socio-environmental struggles
in Santander have forced the Colombian government to set aside 11,700 hectares
of the region as National Park land. At first glance, it was a victory for the environ-
mentalists. However, in order for the newly established park to effectively halt Eco
Oro’s ongoing interest in blowing up parts of the mountain range, and to definitively
protect the moorland habitat in the area from the consequences of large-scale,
open-pit mining, the park’s borders would need to be quickly and clearly defined.
Thus far, the borders remain distinctly ambiguous and open to contention.706 As of
the summer of 2014, Eco Oro remained hopeful that it would eventually be given a
green light to exploit its proposed open-pit mine in Santurbán. Company officials
insist that that the gold deposits they are interested in are located outside of the
zone which was declared a part of the newly established national park territory.707
In one of the most thorough case studies of Eco Oro’s activities in Santander
conducted to date, Land and Conflict: Resource Extraction, Human Rights, and
Corporate Social Responsibility – Canadian Companies in Colombia, the ngos Mining
Watch and censat-Agua Viva bring to light a series of damning conclusions flowing
out of their extensive review of investment documents in the Colombian mining
sector, interviews and focus group sessions with local community activists, and
discussions with politicians of different persuasions, company representatives,
and officials from government institutions involved in the mining sector.708 The
conclusions turn on the pivots of displacement and dispossession, ecology, and the
economic disruption of small-scale artisanal mining and peasant agriculture. The
report finds that, based on available evidence, there are “medium to high potential
risks” that Eco Oro (still Greystar at the time of the study) is
benefitting from dislocation and displacement of local populations;

inadvertently rewarding people or groups who have committed human
rights violations; imposing serious environmental impacts, especially
on crucial water supplies; and imposing undue costs to local people’s
economic livelihoods and food security.709
In terms of displacement and dispossession:
The Colombian Army’s efforts to regain control of the region and end the
long-term presence of the farc in the project area were at least partially
intended to allow Greystar to return to its operations; paramilitary groups
also became involved. The violence had the effect of temporarily and
permanently displacing local people and permanently destroyed their
food production capacity.710
Regarding ecological impact, the results of the study are equally sharp:
Local and environmental authorities have raised serious concerns about

significant and unmitigable ecological impacts, especially to local and
regional water supplies. The Angostura project is located in an ecologically
sensitive area that is already suffering contamination from small-scale
mining. Instead of improving small-scale mining practices and technolo-
gies, the project will increase water use and pose an additional risk of
contamination.711
And, finally, in terms of the disruption of the livelihoods of artisanal miners and
peasants in the area, the report concludes: “Small-scale miners are being displaced
with little or no compensation or relocation plan. The local agricultural economy
will have a more difficult time recovering from violence and dislocation as the mine
occupies increasingly large areas of productive land.”712
As in the case of Gran Colombia, and many other Canadian mining companies,
Eco Oro has made a study of establishing links with Colombia’s political elite in
an effort to manage social resistance to their mining developments in the country.
After running into difficulties from local authorities with the Angostura mine, for
example, Eco Oro named former Justice Minister Rafael Nieto as its president.713
According to Mining Watch, Eco Oro has also “provided logistical support to
establish a base for security operations” in the department of Satander, where it

has its most important operations to date, as we have seen. “There are two military
camps currently within the company’s exploration area and the High Mountain
Battalion there has the capacity to house up to five hundred soldiers. The company
also has retired military personnel within its private security detail.” Paramilitaries
also maintain a presence in the area. Mining Watch notes further that the company
has managed a csr campaign with Canadian (and American) government support,
in which it has “channelled funds from usaid and cida through a foundation it
established to provide a number of community programs in the area, where there
is notably weak presence of the state,” though it has not properly consulted with
the local community about its mining plans.714
The case of Eco Oro is a reflection of the difficulties companies continue to
face from organized opposition. The firm’s plans for its Angostura gold mine were
stalled recently by the Minister of Energy and Mines in the context of a mounting
movement against the project by local communities and environmental organi-
zations. While the company worked to change its plans, including the possibility
of building an underground mine, Colombia’s Ministry of Environment decided
to ban mining and create a wilderness preserve in Satander, where the Eco Oro
property in question is located.715 It is also worth mentioning that Eco Oro has a
long history of conflict with local communities in the country. In the mid-1990s,
when Eco Oro was still known as Greystar, the company was involved in fostering
violent assaults by security forces against its opponents. This led eventually to the
kidnapping of a Greystar executive by the farc, lasting ninety-four days. The kid-
napping ultimately precipitated the temporary exit of Greystar, and several other
Canadian companies, from Colombia by the end of the 1990s.716
Cosigo Resources
In 2014, another representative conflict between indigenous communities and
Canadian mining capital, which began in 2009, was still ongoing in Yaigojé-
Apaporis national park, located in the Colombian Amazon region, in the
department of Vaupés, bordering on Brazil. The Canadian corporation Cosigo
Resources is hoping to extract gold from the park, while roughly twenty indig-
enous communities inhabiting the park—including the territories of the Macuna,
Tanimuca, and Letuama peoples—are lined up against the extractive projects.
The Colombian regulatory body of National Parks created the Yaigojé-Apaporis
national park in 2009, a move which was pushed forward by rounds of community
consultations in the region in which a majority of the inhabitants were in favour
of the establishment of the park. The decision was supported, furthermore, by
the Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales (Colombian
Academy of Natural, Physical and Exact Sciences) which came to the conclusion
that the cultural and spiritual values of the indigenous peoples in the region were
intimately associated with the conservation of the natural environment. However,
in October 2009, two days after the national park was formally established, the
Servicio Geológico Colombiano (Colombian Geological Service, previously
called Ingeominas) granted a mining title to Cosigo Resources covering 9,973
hectares of the park. The Canadian company is now mobilizing its resources to
force progress in terms of facilitating the exploitation of gold in the area, pointing
to its title as the legal basis for proceeding. Three judges were sent to the park in
early 2014, along with the Minister of the Environment, to attempt to settle the
legal components to the dispute.717
The legal battles remain unresolved to date, and the social pressure of activists
is increasingly generating divisions within different components of the state appa-
ratus. For example, the director of the National Mining Agency, María Constanza
García, refuses to revoke the titles. Her logic is that the mining titles do not have
accompanying environmental licences, the other requirement necessary to begin
a mining project, and therefore it is not imperative that the titles be cancelled. The
director of National Parks, Julia Miranda, questions this logic. She believes that
it generates confusion because “anyone who holds a title is always going to try to
exploit it.” She explains how, in the case of the Yaigojé-Apaporis park, indigenous
communities are divided over a title to gold that the government awarded to Cosigo.
Siding with Miranda, the Minister of the Environment, Juan Gabriel Uribe, has
argued that the refusal to cancel these titles is unconstitutional.718
In June 2014, the office of Colombia’s Attorney General became embroiled in the
controversy. The Attorney General has the power to protect strategic ecosystems,
and for this reason can prohibit any mining activity deemed to seriously threaten
the environment. However, this institution has not wanted to declare null and
void the mining title granted to Cosigo Resources, in spite of requests to do so by
the environmental authority of the National Parks system. In the park in question,
there are thirty-six mining titles that have been granted, including that of Cosigo
Resources. On one side of the conflict, there are the twenty indigenous communi-
ties in the area of Cosigo’s title that consider the site sacred, indeed the site from
which life originated. Linked to the concerns of the indigenous communities is
a secular, environmental worry, regarding the park’s natural, ecological diversity.
According to the petition delivered to the Attorney General’s office by the National
Parks authority, living in the million hectares which constitute the park, are 362
species of birds, 81 species of reptiles, 73 species of amphibians, 201 species of
fish, 443 species of butterflies, and 16 species of mammals. On the other side of
the conflict, Cosigo Resources sustains the position that it obtained the mining
title according to the rules, regulations, and norms of Colombian law, and that it
was granted title through legitimate processes. Furthermore, the company argues,
against the evidence of all available precedent, that the mining exploration will
have minimal ecological effects because of the clean technologies to be employed
in the company’s activities, and the fact that there will be economic benefits to the
communities in the form of employment.719
In summary, our discussion of a series of representative Canadian companies
involved in extractive industries in Colombia has shown, unequivocally, that they
are anything but neutral bystanders, or innocent victims caught in the crossfire
of a merely domestic, Colombian armed conflict. To the contrary, Canadian
corporations are benefiting from paramilitary and military terrorization of local
communities which stand in the way of, and in opposition to, large-scale mining
under the control of multinational capital. Canadian companies are intimately
involved in the dispossession and displacement of small peasants, indigenous and
Afro-Colombian communities, and small-scale artisanal miners. For those mines
already in operation, Canadian capital is also involved in the exploitation of the
mine workers. Set against this record, the human rights posturing by Canadian
mining giants and the Canadian government, and their slogans of corporate social
responsibility, are revealed as crude attempts to isolate Canadian capital and the
Canadian state from political accountability for their role in the atrocities carried
out over the last decades in Colombia. Indeed, the line on corporate social respon-
sibility deployed by representatives of Canadian capital in the extractive sectors
begs comparison to the cigarette industry’s denials of the addictive attributes of
nicotine. Obviously, with commodity prices high since 2003, the stakes are high
for investors. The mining and oil industries in Canada are hoping to improve the
image of their activities in Colombia and elsewhere, as part of their general strategy
within the battleground of ideas. If we clear away their smoke and mirrors, however,
underneath lies a set of relatively straightforward geopolitical and investment moti-
vations which underpin the actions of Canadian capital and the state in Colombia.
It is to these motivations that we now turn our attention.
Janus-Faced Free Trade

A major advancement for Canadian capital in the country was the Free Trade
Agreement pursued by the Harper government, the path for which was cleared by
the improved security situation (for corporate investors, at least). An opportunity
to build both stronger economic and political ties, the fta became a focal point of
Canadian diplomatic energies after the announcement of negotiations during the
summer of 2007. In this way, the Canadian government, led by a wave of ministe-
rial visits, moved to formally consolidate the conditions already established on the
ground during Canadian capital’s latest push into the country.
As they have in many other countries in the region, the pdac meetings have
been used as a tool to promote Canadian capital, with Colombian officials brought
to Canada to meet with industry and government representatives about the state of
Colombia’s natural resources sector and strategies for moving forward. Creating the
space to give input on moving the country’s natural resources sector in a direction
favourable to Canadian capital was the impetus behind Canada’s initiative to regu-
larize its outreach to the Colombian government by establishing a working group
with officials in Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy.720 Trips to Colombia by
cabinet ministers and Canadian business executives continued after the agreement
came into force in August 2011 as well: a November 2012 trip, led by Minister of
State for the Americas Diane Ablonczy, for example, featured representatives of a
major Bay St. law firm and several infrastructure firms planning on cashing in on
the rapid growth of the mining and oil sectors.721
The fta itself was a significant victory for the Harper government, given the
difficulties Canadian capital had faced in Colombia a decade earlier. The terrible
human rights situation of the country sparked greater public criticism of the deal
than is normal for Canadian ftas.722 In February 2014, for example, Amnesty
International sponsored a human rights delegation of Colombians to Ottawa,
including Colombian deputy justice Federico Guzman Duque and an indigenous
rights activists who said she was afraid to have her name publicized. They noted
crimes against humanity and war crimes against indigenous Colombians. Duque
discussed the systematic rape and torture of indigenous women as a tool of armed
conflict in the country. He stressed that there has been a campaign of displacement
of indigenous communities whose land stands in the way of the development of
mining concessions. Canada, in particular, they suggested has a responsibility to
take action because of the fta and the presence of Canadian companies involved
in the extractive sectors of the Colombian economy. Duque noted that some
Canadian-owned extractive corporations are associated with armed groups that
protect them in territories that have been depopulated of indigenous peoples, “or
they are simply profiting from that situation.”723
As with all other trade agreements, the new fta legally locks-in the property
rights of Canadian capital, which, together with the war on the Colombian coun-
tryside carried out under Uribe and Santos, creates a much more “secure” situation
for Canadian investors than has previously existed. However, the severity of the
repression in Colombia and the negative attention the agreement received both
internationally and domestically as a result, forced the Harper government to
include human rights conditions in the treaty. A minority government at the time,
the Conservatives were only able to pass the fta with the support of the Liberal
party, which made a show of demanding the inclusion of human rights clauses. True
to form (for both the Conservatives and Liberals), however, these concessions are
superficial at best, and will not have a tangible impact on the practices of Canadian
investors or the Colombian state. They are, as with the Harper government’s dis-
course around human rights in post-coup Honduras, a mere fig leaf designed to
legitimate the plundering of the country’s natural resources, the exploitation of
its workers, and the explicit and implicit support provided to a government that
is a systematic violator of human rights. One such human rights concession is the
establishment of financial penalties—fines—for the killing of trade unionists in
the labour cooperation side agreement (note that this is a side agreement, i.e., not
part of the actual fta). The other major concession, an amendment added to the
implementing legislation at the public behest of Scott Brison and the Liberals in
return for their support, calls for the production of annual reports on the human-
rights impact of the trade agreement.
The constant refrain about human rights in Colombia from both Conservatives
and Liberals is that, while the situation is imperfect, it is not nearly as bad as critics
make it out to be, and that Uribe took great strides during his two administrations to
improve conditions (although, as evidenced by internal reports and communiques,
both fait leaders and the Conservatives privately understand the situation is much
worse than they publicly let on).724 Harper was effusive in his praise for Uribe, who
has “made tremendous progress against the vicious cycle of conflict, violence and
under-development that has plagued Colombia for decades.”725 Stockwell Day,
while Minister of International Trade, offered a new level of absurdity to the debate
on the fta which took place in the House of Commons: “Are people still being
murdered in that country? Yes, they are. They are still being murdered in Canada
also…Is it perfect in Colombia? No, but it is certainly moving in the right direc-
tion.”726 Not surprisingly, the scale of ongoing repression in Colombia, the ties of
the paramilitaries to state institutions, and the scandals around the false positives
(the killing of non-combatants, often street youth, by the military, which said they
were guerrillas in order to claim greater progress in the war) are ignored by the
pro-fta forces in their effort to defend the deal.
As in Honduras, the possibility of economic development and improvement in
the human rights situation was also cited as justification for the fta in the face of
criticism.727 “Rules-based, liberalized trade and investment can…contribute to a
domestic environment where…the rule of law [is] respected,” according to a fait
report.728 The fta will bring rule of law, which will somehow remarkably extend
beyond the property rights of capital—the actual purpose of trade agreements—to
protect the rights of Colombians. According to such fantasies, Canadian investment
will plant the seeds of economic growth out of which will flower greater respect
for human rights. But just as in the Honduran example, the trickle-down theory
of human rights in Colombia has proven to be little more than crude ideological
cover for the untrammeled pursuit of profit: deepening political and economic
ties have not improved human rights in the country. An internal fait report on
the Colombian human rights situation in 2010—three years after Harper’s praise
for Uribe and a year after Day’s ridiculous pronouncements in the legislature,
both quoted above—acknowledges that “Homicides and forced disappearances
of unionists all increased in 2010,” and “violence and threats against human rights
defenders continue,” including by “state agents.”729 In an foreboding sign of the
meaning and potential impact of the fta, a mere two days after the agreement was
passed in Ottawa, Colombian police attacked a strike, seriously injuring a dozen
people at Calgary-based Gran Tierra Energy’s operations.730 Colombian human
rights organization Somos Defensores (We Are Defenders), reports that in 2012
(the year after the fta came into force) the murder of human rights defenders
was, at sixty-nine, fourteen times what it was in 2006. They attribute this growth
to a land restitution law that was to provide displaced people the opportunity to
reclaim stolen land: as more people came forward, more were targeted.731
None of this should come as a surprise: the human rights components of the fta
were never intended to genuinely alter the country’s sociopolitical conditions. The
labour cooperation side agreement calls on both countries to respect basic core labour
standards (right to unionize, no child labour, no forced labour, etc.), but offers no
institutional body to which Colombian workers could complain, apart from those
which previously existed, and which clearly had no substantive impact on workers’
rights prior to the fta, given how terrible the situation was in that period. So there
is no reason to assume anything will change with the treaty simply because a labour
cooperation side agreement was tacked on at the end of it. The addition of fines
imposed on governments for continued violation of labour rights, in a context of
assassinations, death threats, and physical assaults, amounts to a de facto decrimi-
nalization of violence and intimidation. Moreover, there is nothing to indicate in
the side agreement that the Colombian government will be held responsible for
the actions of paramilitaries, who account for a significant amount of the violence
against union activists, and do so with the tacit or explicit consent of the military,
but retain a nominal independence from the government. Another major flaw of the
labour cooperation side agreement is that it does not cover indigenous peoples who,
as we have discussed, are victimized at staggering rates in the mining and oil zones.
As for the vaunted annual reports on human rights, proposed by the Liberals:
they have proven meaningless. The Canadian government’s first annual report,
submitted in May 2012, said nothing about human rights, and instead provided
an overview of the economic relations between the two countries. The second
annual report, submitted in June 2013, offered only a few sentences on human
rights—enough to conclude that “It is not possible to establish a direct link between
the ccofta [Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement] and the human rights
situation in Colombia.” It helps that the embassy in Bogotá, in its contribution to
the report, focused on only two industries—cut flowers and sugar—and within
those industries merely on the impact of tariff reductions on human rights. So while
Canadian investment in Colombia is dominated by the country’s rapidly expanding
mining and energy sectors, both of which are connected to forced displacement,
violation of labour rights, and assassinations, as is widely known and reported by
international and Colombian human rights organizations, these sectors rate no
mention at all in the legally-mandated human rights assessment.732
Development Aid as Trojan Horse

Canadian aid policy is also clearly implicated in the drive to open up Colombia’s
natural resources to foreign investment and thus bears some responsibility for
the human rights tragedy, related in part to the intensification of activities in the
country’s mining and oil zones. While cida boasted about its contribution to
rights in Colombia through its funding of selected projects for the demobilization
of the armed conflict and de-mining programs, this is contradicted by its role in
establishing the country’s liberalized mining regime. Liberalization fuelled military
and paramilitary assaults on communities in the way of resource development. The
mining regime reflects Canada’s prioritization of mining as central to Colombia’s
national development strategy, and offers another example of the interests of
Canadian capital driving aid priorities regardless of the humanitarian crisis to which
it contributes. According to an official at the agency, between 1997 and 2002, cida
financed a project to help the country “strengthen its institutional capacity in both
the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Ministry of the Environment and the
regulatory agencies these agencies worked with.”733
Strengthening “institutional capacity” is a euphemism for neoliberal reform.
At the heart of cida’s spending was the establishment of Colombia’s mining code,
which allowed international capital to enter indigenous territories and peasant
communities containing mineral deposits unfettered. The code facilitated the
unilateral expropriation of land, weakened environmental regulations consider-
ably (including permitting exploration without environmental authorization), and
limited labour rights. Significantly, the code also reduced the royalty rate foreign
mining corporations must pay the Colombian government, from 15 to 4 percent.
The code further established that small-scale artisanal miners had to sign a contract
with the government within three years, or would risk losing access to their depos-
its. Many of these miners, however, were prevented from pursuing this route once
they had been driven from their lands by paramilitary threats. The code, finally, fit
nicely with U.S.-backed Plan Colombia, which Hristov notes, “guarantees private
sector control over natural resources, even if this means the forcible removal of the
existing population from certain areas of the countryside.”734
In other words, the Canadian state and Canadian mining corporations did not
simply benefit from the neoliberal mining code of 2001 through happy coincidence.
They played a central role in its development, beginning in 1996, as the project to
develop a new mining code was initiated. According to Colombian trade union
lawyer and activist Francisco Ramírez Cuellar:
Actions by Canada’s government cooperation agencies like cida

(Canadian International Development Agency) and ceri (Canadian
Energy Research Institute, an ngo representing Canadian-based mining
and energy companies), have created situations of conflict of interest with
its private mining companies. cida-ceri has provided aid in the creation
of mining, petroleum and environmental legislation in Colombia, and
the multinational companies that provide financial support to cida-ceri
have been in a position to benefit from the new laws.735
Indeed, Ramírez Cuellar reports that the code was written by a Colombian lawyer
“connected to the Canadian company Corona Goldfields.”736
The possibility for improved social indicators for Colombians as a result of the
Canadian-backed mining regime approaches zero. If large-scale, multinational
mining leads systematically to displacement and violence, as it does in Colombia,
how can there be any reasonable expectation of improved standards of living? The
reality of tax and royalty revenues also undermines Canada’s claims to be support-
ing Colombia’s economic development: despite the high levels of investment in its
mining sector, the industry generates relatively low earnings from tax and royalty
rates. As one environmental consultant argues:
Foreign companies are the only companies able to do large-scale mining

here. These mining companies keep 96 percent of profits and theoreti-
cally Colombia gets four percent. However, it’s not even four percent…
Colombians finance these foreigners so that they get rich not with 96
percent but 99 percent of profits from our natural resources.737
One study of mining’s contribution to Colombia’s national income, by econo-

mist Guillermo Rudas, finds that in 2009 royalties paid were 1.93 billion pesos
while exemptions were 1.75 billion; and between 2005 and 2010, for every US$100
companies paid to the government in taxes, they received US$200 in exemptions
and other forms of financial support from the state.738
Together with Peru and Bolivia, Colombia has also been included in cida’s
mining-oriented Andean Regional Initiative, the focus of which includes “sus-
tainable development projects” and improving “dialogue between communities
and the private sector.”739 C$6.5 million was earmarked for Colombia. Between
2008–2010 another approximately C$67,000 in projects to support the mining
industry were provided through the cida-funded and embassy-run Canada Fund
for Local Initiatives, while Foreign Affairs spent C$49,000 to “strengthen…
social practices in the extractive sector.” The idea of creating better relations
between the mining sector and the people being displaced by it and targeted for
repression—which in Colombia is really what these various funding initiatives
amount to—is so far removed from the plane of reality that, however much the
government may reference the fund, it cannot possibly believe the line it is selling
with regard to corporate social responsibility. Human rights and improved living
standards are clearly not the drivers behind Canada’s aid program in Colombia.
Conclusion
This chapter has shown the myriad ways in which Canada has sought to secure
its geopolitical and economic interests in Colombia, as well as the strategic role
Colombia plays as an axis for the projection of Canadian imperial power throughout
the rest of the Andean region. Canadian investment, it was demonstrated, enters
into Colombia today against a long historical backdrop of violence and conflict,
accentuated particularly in the special violence of the extractive sectors, in which
Canadian capital has been so active. We have mapped out the broad array of
Canadian investments in Colombia, as well as the grassroots resistance they have
consistently engendered.
It was demonstrated precisely how, and to what great extent, the Canadian state
has employed the nodal entry points of development aid and bilateral free trade in
order to protect those investments. Using these mechanisms, Canadian diplomats
and Canadian capital have lent support to the Colombian state’s militarization, and
have benefited from the impunity with which paramilitary groups are able to ter-
rorize social movements in Colombian society. Canadian foreign direct investment
has flourished in environs that subject many Colombians to heightened insecurity,
repression, and fear. The violent mining sector, as elsewhere in Latin America, has
been a particular area of strength for Canadian capital in Colombia, followed by
oil and gas investments, all supported by a Canadian banking infrastructure. The
configuration of Canadian geopolitical power in Colombia contributes to and
benefits from an environment of relentless violence and dispossession. Canadian
companies are intimately tied to the networks of violence in the countryside, as well
as the less visible networks of elite Colombian urban power. Extractive capitalism
in Colombia enriches Canadian capitalists while intensifying the displacement
and dispossession of peasant, indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and artisanal mining
communities, while exploiting workers in the mining pits and oil and gas fields.
The wealth repatriated to Canadian companies is routinely covered in blood and
dirt. Similar patterns emerge in the case of Peru; to which we now turn.
Chapter 6
Agonies of Mineral
Dependency in Peru
F or centuries, Peru has been the standard bearer for a classical natural resource
dependency—a country integrated into the broader rhythms of the global
economy on the basis of the wealth of its raw materials. The principal demand for
the extraction of these resources has long emanated far from the borders of Peru,
and the control of these resources has likewise rarely been in the hands of Peruvians.
The country has experienced the deprivations, economic swings, constant external
interference, and violence that are de rigueur for countries incorporated along these
lines into the world market. The neoliberal period has only served to extend, and
in some ways intensify, long established historical patterns. Canadian capital has
leapt into the new openings for access to Peru’s mineral wealth brought about by the
latest round of market liberalization. As in Central America, Canadian companies,
supported of course by the Canadian state, are investing in a country haunted by
the long shadows cast by colonial and Cold War violence, products in part of the
curse of its natural resource wealth. This history of violence has been perversely
advantageous to contemporary Canadian investors, however much they are willing
to ignore it. Canadian capital now has a significant presence in Peru. With almost
C$8 billion invested in the country by 2013, Canada is one of the largest foreign
investors in the Andean nation. Mining, in particular, is at the centre of Canada’s
investment profile, and conflict with local communities and Canadian political
intervention are dominant features of the Peruvian landscape.
In the first section of this chapter we discuss the breathtaking dimensions of the
neoliberal mining boom, and the role of Canadian investors therein. The second
182
Agonies Of Mineral Dependency In Peru 183
section situates the current round of natural resource dependency within the longer
historical arc of resource extraction in Peru and the legacy of racist colonial violence
endured by its poor majority, particularly indigenous communities. From there
we discuss patterns of ecological predation and conflict surrounding the current
extraction regime, led by Canada. Lastly, we discuss the ways in which the Canadian
state has intervened to defend the rights of Canadian investors, reinforcing the long
Peruvian trajectory of resource dependency, poverty, and dispossession.
Mining Boom
For hundreds of years the territory now known as Peru has been one of Latin
America’s traditional mining areas. Throughout much of the colonial period under
Spanish rule, and ever since its foundation as an independent republic in the early
nineteenth century, the country has been articulated into the world economy as a
provider of raw materials.740 And yet, mining in Peru assumed an unprecedented
scale and intensity in the 1990s and 2000s. In a world context of rising metal prices,
Peru’s domestic political and economic structures were transformed through a
neoliberal package of structural adjustment introduced by authoritarian President
Alberto Fujimori (1990–2000). The new economic policies were devised to boost
investment opportunities and juridical security for foreign capital operating in the
country. And since the early 1990s, large-scale mining and hydrocarbon extraction
has expanded into new geographical areas within Peru, and intensified in older areas
of traditional exploitation. This dynamic has gradually generated a new wave of
socio-environmental conflict, with rural indigenous communities in the Andean
highlands squaring off with multinational mining corporations, while similar low-
land movements in the Amazon confront the oil equivalent of the mining giants.741
The new recipe of authoritarian neoliberalism under Fujimori, within an auspi-
cious international context, generated an extraordinary pace of accumulation in
Peru, putting the country at the top of growth charts in Latin America and the
Caribbean for much of the last two decades. Between 2006 and 2013, Peru’s gross
domestic product (gdp) grew at an average rate of 6.6 percent, with a low of 1.0
in 2009, in the immediate fallout from the global economic crisis, and a high of
9.1 in 2008.742 From 1990 to 2005, the mining sector was an important driver of
development on a national scale, with global gdp in the country growing by 80
percent over this period, next to 221 percent in mining alone.743 Likewise, between
2002 and 2007, the stock of foreign direct investment (fdi) in the mining sector
increased by 65 percent, in contrast with the 12 percent overall increase in fdi.744
Mining investment expanded exponentially, from US$200 million in 1993, to
US$1.5 billion in 2000, and to US$5 billion in 2010. Some estimates expect
investment to continue along these lines, on a scale of US$35.4 billion between
2010 and 2016.745 However, this rate of investment might now be cooling down
in a changing world context. The recent global downturn in commodity prices,
with slowing demand in China, has meant a corresponding easing of Peru’s growth
generally, and in mining in particular. In 2014, the country expanded by only 2.6
percent, the lowest growth rate in a number of years.746
Peru ranks among the highest producers in Latin America, and indeed the world,
across a number of different mining minerals: tin, first in Latin America and third
internationally; zinc, first in Latin America and second internationally; lead, first
in Latin America and fourth internationally; gold, first in Latin America and sixth
internationally; silver, first in Latin America and first in the world; copper, second
in Latin America and second in the world; iron, fifth in Latin America and seventh
in the world.747 This natural abundance, in conjunction with domestic economic
restructuring and the insatiable thirst of mining capital in a boom context, helps
explain over two decades of continuous mining expansion and intensification.
Between 1994 and 2009, mining accounted for an average of 6 percent of Peru’s
gdp, 60 percent of its exports, and 21 percent of foreign direct investment flow-
ing into the country. At the same time, it accounted for an astonishingly low 1
percent of employment.748 Between 2002 and 2007, the contribution of mining
to internal tax revenue shot up from 3.6 to 24.7 percent.749 Geographically, the
sheer territorial area covered by mining concessions has increased impressively,
from 2.3 million hectares at the beginning of the 1990s to 24 million hectares, or
19 percent of national territory, by November 2013.750 While once an economic
activity confined exclusively to the Andean highlands of the country, the recent
geographical spread of concessions has come to encompass valley areas, coastal
regions, and the highlands and lowlands of the Amazon.751
Of Peru’s 229 mining properties at the end of 2013, 180 were owned by Canadian
companies. There are also a dozen Canadian oil and gas companies with operations
in the country.752 In 2012, Canadian engineering firm Dessau acquired a Peruvian
counterpart that specializes in energy infrastructure, making it the second largest
engineering company in the country. Dessau’s Peruvian growth followed 2011
acquisitions in Colombia and Chile.753 A free trade agreement between Canada
and Peru in effect since 2009, together with Canadian dominance in the natural
resource sectors of the Peruvian economy, has also provided a platform for exten-
sion in other areas, not least in banking: Scotiabank was the third largest bank in
Peru by 2011, with 17 percent of the country’s market share. Scotiabank’s expan-
sion in Peru, as has been the case elsewhere in Latin America, is tightly linked to
Canada’s growing weight in the country’s natural resources and energy sectors.754
The nefarious socio-ecological impact of mining growth in the country has
accounted for much of the uptick in social conflict in the country in recent years.
According to the monthly reports on social conflict issued by the country`s
Ombudsman, roughly 50 percent can be characterized as socio-environmental, with

conflicts over hydrocarbon extraction, and, especially, mining, accounting for most
of the conflict in this area. In 2010, for example, mining conflicts apparently con-
stituted 64 percent of the socio-environmental disputes documented that year.755
The level of confrontation in mining zones is unsurprising given what we know
about the consequences of capitalist extraction across Latin America in recent
years. There is now ample evidence of the impact of such intensified extractivism—
including open-pit mining and Amazonian oil development in the Peruvian case.
Some of the ecological and social repercussions include the destruction of ecologi-
cal systems and natural habitats, pollution, displacement of local communities,
destruction of regional economies, manipulation and imposition by representatives
of foreign mining corporations and the state vis-à-vis rural and indigenous com-
munities, as well as rampant everyday corruption.756 This runs alongside the type
of development that this kind of mining predictably produces, a type of develop-
ment incapable of improving the lives of Peruvians or protecting the environment,
in which the presence of multinational mining and oil companies involves their
simultaneous and connected activities of expatriating profits and externalizing the
social and environmental costs of mining production.757 Finally, there is the basic
fact of declining resources—that is, the ecological limits on exhaustible mineral
extraction, or the incalculable permanent loss of this natural wealth once it has
been extracted and exported from the country.758 A recent paper of mainstream
economists sought to measure “the loss of natural capital and [correct] the meas-
ure of economic income generated by the metal mining of Peru during the period
1992–2006.” In the dry, measured language of the economics profession, the
authors find that “metal mining activities have caused significant environmental
impacts,” and that their “estimates show that the economic income corrected for
the depreciation of mineral resources and the environmental degradation has been
significantly overestimated by the usual gdp measure for the period.”759
Water Stress
By some accounts, mining activities now affect roughly 50 percent of Peru’s peas-
ant communities.760 Water is one of their principal worries. Access to and control
over water quantity and quality have been at the centre of many recent conflicts
between indigenous and peasant communities and mining companies. “Peru is
South America’s most water-stressed country,” note Anthony Bebbington and
Mark Williams, a geographer and hydrologist respectively. “Water draining from
the Andean highlands serves as a water tower that supports the downstream
population and attendant agricultural activities, including the country’s dynamic
agricultural export economy.”761 Water scarcity in the country makes it, according
to some experts, the third most vulnerable country to the outcomes of climate
change in the world.
Already scarce quantities of water have been put under tremendous pressure as
mining has expanded. Many mining concessions in Peru are situated in headwater
regions of the Andes, and mining’s adverse impact on water quality—acid mine
drainage (from acids and heavy metals used for ore separation), leakage of ancillary
products of production, and dumping of tailings (finely ground rock from which
ore has been extracted)—can therefore extend well beyond the immediate mine
site, carried along by rivers and aquifers.762 “In July 2008,” Bebbington and Williams
remind us, “Peru declared a state of emergency at a mine near Lima over fears that
its tailings dam, weakened by seismic activity and subterranean water filtration,
could release arsenic, lead, and cadmium into the main water supply for the capital.”
They point out that experts estimate that “every year mining and metallurgy release
over 13 billion m³ of effluent into Peru’s water courses.”763
In their recent study of “water grabbing” in the Peruvian mining industry,
engineers and social scientists Milagros Sosa and Magreet Zwarteveen have
scrupulously documented multinational mining companies’ expropriation of
water resources in the country. They show how large mining operations have
fundamentally altered how, and by whom, water is controlled.764 The net effect
of these operations is the reconfiguration of water governance in Peru, whereby
marginalized local communities lose access to and control over water. They are
“effectively being dispossessed by losing their water rights.”765
Historical Backdrop: Race, Class, Geography, Terror

One useful point of departure for understanding the historical trajectory of Peru’s
political economy and social struggles are some of the foundational insights in the
work of the country’s preeminent Marxist theorist of the early twentieth century,
José Carlos Mariátegui. Central emphases running throughout Mariátegui’s writ-
ings are precisely those which continue to animate—albeit in new forms—much
of Canada’s foreign policy in Latin America in the late-twentieth and early twenty-
first centuries—the history of colonialism, the world market and dynamics of
imperialism in a an asymmetrically patterned world system of states, the uneven
and combined development of capitalism in late-developing societies, and the
enduring legacies of racism through slavery and conquest.
Mariátegui begins from the premise that the Spanish conquest of Peru
“destroyed economic and social forms that were born spontaneously from the
Peruvian land and people,” forms which were “nourished by an indigenous sense
of life.”766 The conquest was, above all, “a terrible carnage,” after which the “politi-
cal and economic organization of the colony…continued the extermination of the
Indigenous race. The viceroyalty established a system of brutal exploitation.”767 In

what is probably his most famous essay, “The Land Problem,” Mariátegui describes
Peru’s economy in the early twentieth century as “colonial,” in the sense that its
“movement, its development, are subordinated to the interests and the necessities of
the markets in London and New York.”768 Peru is reduced to supplying the primary
products to the dominant imperial powers, as well as serving as a market for their
manufactured goods. Elsewhere, he charts a large part of the flow of profits from
mining, commerce, and transportation leaving Peru for capitals based in the impe-
rial countries, forcing the South American country into a position of requesting
them back through loans and the acquisition of debt.769 Mariátegui also notes the
way in which imperialism “does not allow any of these semicolonial peoples, whom
it exploits as a market for capital and goods and as a source for raw materials, to
have an economic program of nationalization and industrialization.” The recurring
crisis of the Peruvian economy “arises from this rigid determination of national
production created by forces of the world capitalist market.”770
Unique to Mariátegui’s work in this period is the systematic treatment of the
racialized character that uneven and combined development assumed in republican
Peru. “Feudal and bourgeois elements in our countries have the same contempt
for the Indians, as well as for the blacks and mulattos, as do the white imperialists,”
Mariátegui stresses in his dissident address (read in his absence) to the First Latin
American Communist Conference in Buenos Aires in 1929:
The ruling class’s racist sentiment acts in a manner totally favorable

to imperialist penetration. The native [Peruvian, not indigenous] lord
or bourgeois has nothing in common with their pawns of color. Class
solidarity is added to racial solidarity or prejudice to make the national
bourgeoisie docile instruments of Yankee or British imperialism. And that
feeling extends to much of the middle class, who imitate the aristocracy
and the bourgeoisie in their disdain for the plebeian of color, even when
it is quite obvious that they come from a mixed background.771
“The republic has the responsibility to raise the status of the Indian,” Mariátegui
notes in the essay “Peru’s Principal Problem.” “And contrary to this duty, the
republic has impoverished the Indians. It has compounded their depression and
exasperated their misery. The republic has meant for the Indians the ascent of
a new ruling class that has systematically taken their lands.”772 Considering the
centrality to Mariátegui’s framework of the racialized character of economic and
political development in Peru, it is not surprising that a politics of anti-racism,
and especially of indigenous liberation, proliferates throughout his discussions of
emancipatory strategy and the potential sources of liberation.
Many of the themes taken up in the work of Mariátegui—racial, class, and

geographic divides between coastal oligarchic elites rooted in Lima and the indig-
enous communities of the Andean highlands and Amazonian lowlands, waves
of racist dispossession of indigenous peasants by light-skinned Peruvian elites
allied with foreign capitalists, the subordination of Peru to the dominant powers
of the world market, and the resistance to these injustices offered by indigenous
peasants and Peruvian workers and the poor—have been of continued relevance
to Peruvian reality throughout the remainder of the twentieth century, and into
the twenty-first.
The local dynamics of the Cold War in Peru merely intensified long-standing
patterns. Beginning in the late 1950s, a powerful indigenous-peasant movement
was forged in the Andean highlands, weakening and threatening the hegemony of
the Peruvian ruling class. The Cuban Revolution in 1959 further inspired peasant
movements, rural guerrilla formations, and urban labour activism in Peru in the
1960s, as it did other movements and popular organizations elsewhere in Latin
America.773 The worker and peasant protests which continued to grow over the
course of the 1960s constituted a New Left of a breadth and depth which was never
matched in the country in the often devastating decades that followed.774
A coup by the armed forces in 1962 was the first signal of a response from
above to the growing momentum of social movements from below, and this was
followed six years later by a second coup in 1968, this time under the leadership of
reformist-nationalist generals. “The experiment in authoritarian nationalist reform
launched by the Peruvian military in 1968,” notes historian Gerardo Rénique, “did
not solve the crisis of oligarchic legitimacy that began in the late 1950s, but merely
postponed its resolution.”775 According to Rénique, once the military had allowed
for the return of democratic rule in 1980, “the country was in an even more volatile
situation than it had been in the 1960s.”776
The stage had been set for the most extreme period of political violence in
the republic’s history, the civil war between 1980 and 1992, in which the Maoist
Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Peruvian state were the principal
players.777 Peru’s deep historical backdrop of geographically uneven capitalist devel-
opment, intense levels of class-based inequality, racism, and repressive violence
on the part of military and paramilitary allies trained in U.S. counterinsurgency
doctrine, conjoined in the 1980s and early 1990s with the the fundamentalist
strain of Maoism adopted by Sendero to produce catastrophic levels of violence.
“Although the Peruvian state had previously used arbitrary detentions, killings,
torture, exile, and deportation to discourage mass action and eliminate opposi-
tion leaders,” Rénique points out, “during the 1980s war…‘traditional’ modes of
repression gave way to harsher forms of exemplary and punitive violence aimed
against civilian men, women, and children.”778
So-called “death caravans” run by the military
carried out rapes, tortured, executed and disappeared not just alleged
subversives and their relatives but also college professors and students;
they also corralled peasant villagers into strategic hamlets and arbitrarily
detained and harassed thousands of citizens, including large numbers of
journalists and lawyers.779
The state justified these actions with reference to the “just war” it was carrying
out against terrorist subversives. Mobilizing the well-honed racism of coastal elites
in the capital, the Peruvian military tended to see the rural indigenous population
of the Andean highlands in particular as “natural” allies and social bases of Sendero,
and thus there was often a distinctly racialized character to the repression of civil-
ians carried out by the Peruvian state and right-wing paramilitaries.
Meanwhile, Sendero saw anyone without explicit allegiances to the guerrilla move-
ment as obstacles standing in the way of the successful resolution of its revolutionary
war against the Peruvian state, or worse, collaborators of that state. “It executed leaders
of the many unions, peasant federations, women’s groups, neighborhood organiza-
tions, and student federations who had not pledged allegiance,” Rénique, together
here with anthropologist Deborah Poole, points out. “Activists, elected officials, nuns,
priests, nongovernmental organization workers, and local government functionaries
were also targeted, often in public executions of ‘people’s trials’.”780
According to the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission ( June
2001—August 2003), roughly seventy thousand people were killed between 1980
and 2000, with 54 percent of casualties coming at the hands of Sendero—an anoma-
lous proportion of deaths perpetrated by a guerrilla group in any Latin American
civil conflict in the twentieth century, as in other cases the vast proportion of killing
was done by the armed forces and allied paramilitary groupings.781 Nonetheless,
the atrocities committed by the state and its paramilitary allies were near equal in
number and stature, argue close observers of Peru, such as Poole and Rénique.
The country was increasingly militarized, and special powers were granted to the
executive branch during the administrations of Fernando Belaúnde (1980–1985)
and Alan García (1985–1990). “Curiously,” Poole and Rénique point out,
among the most frequent targets of the state’s terrorism laws were the same
people targeted by the pcp-sl [Sendero]. Grassroots leaders and elected
officials from the United Left coalition (at the moment the country’s
second most important electoral force) were charged as sympathizers or
terrorists. Antiterrorist legislation also provided justification for rounding
up all the dark-skinned cholos and indios who the state perceived as the
“natural” allies of Sendero Luminoso.782
Fujimori and Authoritarian Neoliberal Rule

Alberto Fujimori was elected president on a far-Right ticket in 1990, promising a
combination of hard-line policies against Sendero terrorism; more power to the
executive office; further militarization of Peruvian society; and the establishment of
a coordinated and centralized national intelligence service, to be directed by the now
notorious Vladimiro Montesinos.783 In 1992, Fujimori’s popularity was strengthened
when, thanks to a pre-existing police surveillance operation, Abimael Guzmán, the
leader of Sendero, was captured, and the civil war was for all intents and purposes
brought to a close. Still unsatisfied with his powers as president, however, Fujimori
launched an auto-golpe, or self-coup, against his own government in April 1992,
suspending Congress and delegating unrestricted authority to the executive. In so
doing he established unmitigated authoritarian rule in Peru that would last until 2000.
As was the case elsewhere in Latin America, the concentration of power within
the Peruvian state, and the violence unleashed against any and all progressive
expressions of opposition to state authority, under Fujimori, provided the necessary
political freedom of manoeuver to simultaneously introduce an extreme economic
program of neoliberal restructuring; this economic dimension of authoritarian rule
under Fujimori was ultimately the domestic basis for the “mining boom” into which
Canadian foreign direct investment would flow in abundance over the following
decades. “In this respect,” Rénique observes,
the counterinsurgency launched against not just Sendero but also the
broader Peruvian Left and popular movement not only enhanced the
military capabilities of the state but, more important, expanded its
ideological hold over the political and cultural imagination of a society
in which the memory of war and the privatizations of neoliberal reforms
have combined to undermine the appeals of collective organization and
the critical stance of utopian thinking.784
The market reforms under Fujimori were multifaceted, but their underlying
motive was to secure a juridical environment in which the rights of foreign direct
investors in the mining industry could be held over and above virtually all other
considerations. Inalienable communal property rights of indigenous and peasant
communities, established in the 1920s, were seen as a serious obstacle standing in
the way of private mining development. Likewise, legal conditionalities for approval
for foreign concessions in extractive industries were seen as prohibitively bureau-
cratic, particularly those involving environmental obligations and restrictions.
The attack on these and other components of excessive “red tape” in the mining
industry by the Fujimori regime was enabled precisely by the concentration of
decision-making power within the hands of the executive.785
In a single year, 1991, an entire program of structural reform was introduced.

This involved a series of laws designed to guarantee the stability of Foreign Direct
Investment. Environmental, land, and indigenous communities laws were passed
in lightening succession, the motive of all of them subject to the logic of extending
foreign investment in private mining as commodity prices began to rise on the
international market. The dynamic of the 1991 legislation culminated, ultimately,
in a new General Mining Law and a new Constitution in 1993, both of which
consolidated the reforms by favouring the rights of foreign investors in the coun-
try in myriad ways.786 A new land law of 1995, implementing many of the themes
embodied in the undemocratic constitution of 1993, made it possible to commer-
cialize indigenous and peasant communal lands for the first time since the 1920s.787
Other small peasant landowners were also forced into selling off their land
to facilitate large-scale mining operations under the control of foreign capital.
Landowners’ property rights in Peru do not extend below the surface, as the rights
to subsoil minerals belong to the state. In the case of any recalcitrance on the part of
a landowner—for example, refusal to sell at the market price or above—Fujimori’s
reforms made it possible for the state to expropriate the property in question. In
effect, this facilitated transfer of title to the mining company. The threat of this legal
possibility alone stimulated huge transfers of private and communally held land
to foreign mining firms across large swathes of Peruvian territory.788 Fujimori also
smashed residual protections of workers in the extant labour code, introduced a
floating exchange rate, and eliminated restrictions on remittances of profits, divi-
dends, and royalties.789 Legislation exempted new mining operations from royalty
payments, and under the new rules multinational mining companies investing in
Peru were not required to pay the standard 30 percent tax on profit until they had
recovered their initial investments.790 Meanwhile, at a regulatory level, the Ministry
of Energy and Mines was simultaneously made responsible for: “(i) promoting
investment in new mining operations; (ii) granting mining concessions; and (iii)
reviewing and approving the environmental impact assessments required for new
exploration and extraction activities.”791 In addition to these economic incentives
and regulatory laxities, the military defeat of Sendero Luminoso made the invest-
ment environment more attractive to foreign capital. The end of guerrilla activities
in the Andean region, “allowed geologists to travel safely through the highlands in
search of new mineral deposits and to establish new mining claims,” the geographer
Jeffrey Todd Bury points out. “Consequently, in 1992, more mining claims were
staked than for the previous fifteen years.”792
Continuities in Post-Fujimori Peru

In terms of political economy, the continuities between Fujimori and his imme-
diate successors (Alejandro Toledo, 2001–2006; Alan García, 2006–2011) were
pronounced. The orthodox economic mixture of neoliberal policies that had
transformed the country into a sought-after destination for new mining investors
was continued with striking fidelity by both Toledo, a former employee of the
World Bank, and García, an erstwhile left-populist president (1985–1990) turned
born-again neoliberal during his second administration.
If the economic trajectory remained largely unchanged in post-Fujimori Peru,
however, the end of explicit authoritarian rule opened up new space for organ-
izing social movements, and anti-mining protests rose to the surface in a dramatic
way, embroiling a number of Canadian mining concessions into new conflicts
with local communities in the process. What had been relatively isolated mining
protests throughout the 1990s made an organizational advance into a national
network of activism just at the end of Fujimori’s rule, in 1999, with the establish-
ment of the Confederación Nacional de Comunidades del Perú Afectadas por la
Minería (National Confederation of Peruvian Communities Affected by Mining,
conacami).793
In the context of Fujimorni’s authoritarian rule, strike activity and protests of
various sorts experienced an overall decline. This pattern changed dramatically
under Toledo, with the weekly magazine Caretas documenting eight hundred
separate protests in Lima in 2002 alone.794 A major anti-neoliberal protest threw
the city of Arequipa into crisis in 2002, when citizens rose up to protest the pri-
vatization of the municipal electricity companies. More than any other sector
of conflict, however, mining became the new frontier of emergent activism and
protest. While these protests were geographically fragmented and more often
than not locally organized and unarticulated at the national level, all of their local
expressions began to have a national impact economically and politically in the
mining sector.795 One detailed scholarly study of social conflict in Peru between
2004 and 2011 notes that the “total number of social conflicts…considering all
types of disputes, has increased dramatically since 2004.” The study goes on to
show that the conflicts in question:
are varied; they extend well beyond a single episode; and they frequently
go unresolved for months or years. The spike in their number is largely
a result of the public reaction to the activities of mining companies and
other extractive industries in environmentally sensitive areas. In fact, in
2011, these “socioenvironmental” disputes represented well over half of
all conflicts, and they continue to roil national politics.796
International mining companies, including Canadian investors, were closely

observing this upturn in social protest in the extractive sectors of the Peruvian
economy. One expression of this worry can be discerned in the annual reports of
the conservative Canadian think-tank, the Fraser Institute, on metal mining and
exploration companies. These reports attempt to assess natural mineral wealth, and
public policy, taxation, and regulation in mining sectors across different countries
and regions of the world. The surveys include two indexes based on the information
they collect, a Policy Potential Index (ppi) and a Mineral Potential Index (mpi).
As the sociologist Moisés Arce points out:
These indexes serve as a report card to governments on how attractive

their polices are from the point of view of an exploration manager. In the
2005–6 survey, for instance, the mpi index placed Peru at the top of the
sample of 64 countries, suggesting that the sheer potential of the country’s
mineral resources was extremely high. In contrast, the ppi index—which
takes into account, among other things, the presence of political stability
and societal conflicts—has consistently dropped since 2003.797
Even if such protests never reached a comparable scale to parallel social move-
ments in nearby Bolivia, Argentina, and Ecuador over the same period, anti-mining
activism was undoubtedly making its presence felt in Peru.798
Canadian Mining Conflicts: The Cases of Tambogrande and Ancash

Canadian capital has been at the forefront of the mining drive since the 1990s
under Fujimori, and it is therefore not surprising that Canadian mining giants
ran up against the new dynamic of expanding socio-ecological activism in the
newly democratic context of the early 2000s.799 Indeed, new anti-mining strug-
gles pitted directly against Canadian capital were widespread by the early 2000s,
stretching from the peasant communities of Vicco, Tintaya-Marquiri, and Yauli,
to the district of San Marcos in the Andean department of Ancash.800 The conflict
in Tambogrande, beginning in earnest in 2001, was representative of many others
in the country.
Tambogrande is located in the northern region of Piura, 1,050 kilometres from
Lima. The Canadian corporation, Manhattan Minerals Corp., began surveying
the Tambogrande reserve when it won an exploration concession in 1999.801 At
the time, Manhattan Minerals estimated the value of gold, silver, copper, and zinc
deposits in their concession to be approximately US$1.6 billion.802 A number of
concerns about the Tambogrande project made it a highly unpopular venture in
the affected community.
There were concerns about the large scale displacement of residents—projected
to be between eight thousand and twenty thousand—due to the fact that parts
of the concession were based inside the town centre.803 Manhattan Minerals had
initiated exploration drilling soon after the company won the concession. They
had established plans to develop an opencast mine three kilometers in diameter,
within an urban area. As a result, they made it clear that their intention was to
relocate at least eight thousand people into a nearby area, in a town which they
planned to build.804
Fears were widespread that water scarcity and contamination, as well as other
deleterious environmental effects from mining, would negatively impact the
226,000 hectares of mango, lemon, and other fruit trees which are harvested
for export in the area, and which provide employment for 26,000 people and
US$105 million annually to the local economy.805 The San Lorenzo valley in which
Tambogrande is located suffers from acute water scarcity. The utilization of water
resources for mining interests was expected to have devastating consequences for
local consumption and agricultural activities. The opponents of the mining develop-
ment were also concerned with company plans to divert the Piura River in order to
access ore bodies currently under water.806 Based on their long historical memory
of earlier colonial and republican mining activities in Peru, anti-mining activists in
Tambogrande believed that the vast profits expected to come from the concession
would, by and large, fall into the pockets of foreign capital, while only the devasta-
tion wrought on the community and the environment would be left in its wake.
In the 1970s and 1980s the principal actor in the popular struggle in the mines
was the National Federation of Mining, Metallurgical, Iron and Steel Workers of
Peru, established in 1969. The miners of this federation were a driving force of
the Peruvian labour movement as a whole. They developed a powerful ideology
of resistance rooted in anti-imperialism and workers’ rights.807 With the rapid
expansion of mining activities into new rural areas during the 1990s, however,
the principal axis of contention in mining zones shifted from miners struggling for
their rights in existing mines, to peasant, indigenous, and community resistance
to new mining expansion. A major turning point in this shift was the foundation
of conacami in 1999, following a series of meetings between forty different
communities in six different regions of the country beginning in 1998.808 The
conflict in Tambogrande was part of this new wave of struggle beginning in the
late-1990s, which then expanded fairly dramatically over the course of the next
decade and a half.
A coalition of “small- and medium-sized farmers, smallholders and day-labour-
ers, teachers, traders, the Catholic Church, and in general the various social sectors
of the locality and the region,” resisted Manhattan Minerals through the formation
of the Tambogrande Defence Front, which was, in turn, part of the national con-
acami coalition.809 The front utilized a series of tactics to resist Manhattan’s goals in
the area, including strikes, occupations, and a referendum on mining activities. In

a strike in late February 2001, “some 5,000 local residents stormed the company’s
premises on February 28, burning machinery.”810 According to a witness report from
Francisco Ojeda Riofrío—the Human Rights Secretary of conacami, President
of the Tambogrande Defence Front, and mayor of the Municipal Government of
Tambogrande—the strike happened
because the people were frustrated, indignant, because nobody was paying
attention to them. The company hired 700 police, and the people from
Tambogrande confronted them. When violence broke out, they said that
we had hired terrorists to come to Tambogrande. Halfway through that
strike they killed our main leader, our big brother, Godofredo García
Baca, and to this day his killer has not been captured, although it is widely
known that he is a former air force sergeant.811
Despite the fact that García Baca was president of a local agricultural association
and a central leader in the opposition movement, Manhattan Minerals claimed his
murder was apolitical, the tragic consequence of a robbery gone awry.812 According
to Ojeda Riofrío, however, infiltration and recording of popular meetings by com-
pany informants was a common occurrence. Even more seriously, three months
after the strike in which García Baca was murdered, “seven armed thugs abducted
[my] daughter from the university, and dumped her in the main street of Piura.
The next day we had a public debate scheduled with the mining company—I don’t
know if they were the ones behind my daughter’s abduction, but it was someone
who wanted to scare me.”813 Death threats against Ojeda Riofrío and his family
continued.
In 2002, the Tambogrande Defence Front held an unbinding popular referen-
dum on whether or not the Manhattan mining projects should proceed. Indeed,
this was Latin America’s first self-organized popular referendum of this type, a tactic
that, following on the successes of Tambogrande, became a common feature of the
repertoires of collective action employed by anti-mining activists from Argentina
to Mexico in the coming years.814 Of 37,000 eligible voters, over 27,000 partici-
pated. Ninety-four percent of votes cast were opposed to the mining project.815 The
company denied the credibility of the referendum, and apparently later conducted
a poll of its own—but failed to publish the results when they reaffirmed those of
the earlier referendum.816 Over the next three years, the anti-mining movement of
Tambogrande persisted vigilantly in their multifaceted efforts. Another three-day
explosive protest took place in November 2003, for example. Such activism on vari-
ous levels continued until Manhattan Minerals finally abandoned their concession
in 2005, under pressure by the Peruvian government, but also citing the ongoing
protests as standing in the way of the financial feasibility of the project.817 As the
Norwegian sociologists Håvard Haarstad and Arnt Fløysand point out:
Under intense national and international pressure, the Peruvian

government revoked the operating license of Manhattan Minerals in
Tambogrande, effectively putting a stop to the project. In a country
traditionally dominated by mining and the interests of the elite, a rural
community had halted a large, foreign-controlled mining project through
what can be said to be significant political empowerment by drawing on
their network of national and international organizations.818
A similar rhythm to conflict in the mining sector continued under the adminis-
tration of Alan García, and, once again, Canadian mining firms found themselves
at the centre of numerous popular anti-mining campaigns. During his successful
2006 presidential campaign, García made a promise to review mining contracts,
because the extraordinary profits being expatriated by foreign multinationals was
becoming well-known and widely repudiated in the Peruvian body politic, and
the calls for a windfall tax were becoming louder. However, once in office García’s
windfall tax was watered down to a voluntary commitment on the part of mining
firms. If that was not enough on its own, under García, the Ministry of Energy and
Mines continued to be simultaneously responsible for the entirely contradictory
roles of attracting new foreign mining investment, granting mining concessions
to private capital, and reviewing and implementing environmental impact assess-
ments required before beginning any new exploration or extraction activity in
the country.819
One of the exemplary social conflicts involving a Canadian mining company
under García became a flashpoint only a month after the April 2006 general elec-
tions in Peru. The conflict in question pivoted on the Pierina gold mine in the
region of Ancash. The deposit had been discovered back in the mid-1990s by a
Vancouver-based exploration company, but that company was then acquired by
Barrick Gold in 1996. Soon thereafter, Barrick began a land acquisition program
to obtain approximately 2,300 hectares of surface area in order to develop the
mining concession. The bulk of the area was positioned in the headwaters of three
valleys, in which small-scale farmers used grasslands as commons for their cattle
and sheep ranching.820
Residents eventually agreed to sell their land to the company after they were
promised social development and jobs in the new mine. “In the years since,” writes
geographer Matthew Himley, drawing on thirteen months of ethnographic research
in the area, “permanent employment at Pierina has been unavailable for most area
residents: though many of my 46 interviewees in these two communities expressed
interest in steady work at Pierina, none had been hired full time.”821 In early May
2006, frustrated with the lack of job prospects and Barrick’s unfulfilled pledges for
social development, men and women from seventeen communities blocked two of
the mine’s main access roads at midnight. On the second day of the road blockade,
a special-operations police unit was sent in to clear away protestors. In the ensuing
conflict, one protestor was killed, and at least ten were seriously injured. Nine police
officers were also injured that day.822 According to Himley, again drawing on lengthy
discussions he carried out with interviewees in the area between 2006 and 2012:
Residents’ positive depictions of local history were often embedded

within broader narratives regarding the unfavorable socio-environmental
consequences of large-scale mining. Along with references to the adverse
impacts of mining on resource availability and social life, these narratives
often included mention of the inadequate social-development support
that communities received from Barrick.823
The protests against Barrick continue in Ancash, as residents in the area defy state
repression carried out on behalf of Barrick’s operations in the area.
Violence and Eco-Destruction beyond Tambogrande and Ancash

The cases of Tambogrande and Ancash are symptomatic of the conflict that has
accompanied Canadian investment in Peru. The Canadian government has actively
supported Canadian economic interests and, in the process, made allies of local
political leaders willing to use whatever means necessary, including repression,
to defend Canadian investors. Alain García, for instance, proved a useful asset to
Canada, bending over backwards for foreign investors. In a speech delivered in
Ecuador to the Canada-Peru Chamber of Commerce, Helena Guergis, Canadian
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, ignored Peru’s poor
human rights record under García, counting him instead as a foreign-investor
friendly ally. “Under the leadership of President Alan García,” she intoned, “Peru
is showing a new determination to…develop stronger governance mechanisms;
and encourage more openness to trade and investment.”824 Both of those aspects
of García’s leadership were in ample display for Canadian and foreign capital. An
eager supporter of Canadian foreign investors, García signed a free trade agreement
(fta) in 2008, intensifying the process of opening up wide swaths of the country
to foreign investors—as noted, between 2006 and 2010 the area of the country
covered by mining concessions almost doubled, extending to 16.7 percent of the
national territory. In 2010 alone, as García opened up the country, Peru received
7,000 requests for exploration permits from 150 junior companies.825
García, ever willing to please the Canadians, also continued his predecessors’
policies of allowing no charge of royalties or a windfall tax on mining investments.

As noted, García instead established a voluntary windfall payment. The outcome
of García’s financial generosity to foreign investors was entirely predictable and
demonstrates the absurdity of the mining industry’s rote public relations claims
to being an important contributor to development in poor countries. Despite the
global commodities boom, the voluntary tax netted a meager US$638 million
from mining companies by the end of 2010, while the total net global earnings of
the five biggest foreign miners in the country from 2005 to June 2010 (including
Barrick) was US$20 billion. Over that same period, only 12 percent of the mining
industry’s profits in Peru went to taxes and royalties. The absurdity of the neoliberal
fantasies of García and his Canadian supporters is captured in the fact that in the
region of Cajamarca, one of the biggest destinations for mining investment in the
country in the late 2000s, poverty increased over this period.826
Adding to his esteem in the eyes of the Canadian government, García did not
hesitate to crush opposition to natural resource development. In perhaps the most
ignominious episode of his presidency, he sent security forces on June 2, 2009 to
smash an indigenous blockade in its second month near Bagua in northern Peru
close to the Ecuadorian border. The blockade was set up in opposition to govern-
ment decrees issued following the signing of the fta, which permitted mining,
oil, and logging development in 70 percent of Peru’s Amazon rainforest without
requiring the prior consent of indigenous inhabitants. Security forces shot and
killed a number of protesters and injured over two hundred; a number of police
were also killed during the conflagration. As journalist David Hill reports:
The conflict broke out in northern Peru after mainly indigenous Awajúns
and Wampis had been peacefully protesting a series of new laws which
were supposed emitted to comply with a trade agreement between Peru
and the U.S. and which made it easier, among other things, for extractive
industries to exploit natural resources in their territories. Following a
blockade of a highway near a town called Bagua—and an agreement that
the protestors would break up and go home, reached the day before—
early on 5 June the police moved to clear it and started shooting. In the
ensuing conflict, 10 police officers, five indigenous people and five non-
indigenous civilians were killed, more than 200 injured—at least 80 of
whom were shot—and, elsewhere in the Bagua region, a further 11 police
officers were killed after being taken hostage.827
Canada’s fta with Peru was actually passed into law by the Harper government
just a few days after this massacre, with no mention of the violent repression in
Peru.828 But the shooting of dozens of indigenous protesters pales in importance
compared to a new fta that will, in the words of Minister of Trade, Stockwell
Day, “open new doors in key sectors such as extractive industries, manufacturing,
agriculture and financial services.”829
The following August, Awajún and Wampis indigenous communities issued
statements demanding Vancouver-based Dorato Resources leave their ancestral
territories. Dorato received its concession in the Awajún and Wampis territories
and approval for its environmental permit even though it did not consult with
the indigenous communities. But the Awajún and Wampis are not only fighting
Dorato. iamgold is also operating in their territories without consulting them,
and in fact without initially being given permission from the Peruvian government,
which in 2009 reported that the company had not even asked for a permit and that
its operations there were “illegal.”830
In the spring of 2010 poor artisanal miners in Chala in southern Peru, led by
the National Federation of Artisanal Miners of Peru, set up blockades in opposi-
tion to the government’s decision to open large tracts of their land to foreign
investors. The blockade was met with the heavy hand of the state: police fired on
the protesters, killing five.831 Peru’s security forces would launch another assault
on artisanal miners in the twilight days of García’s presidency, in February 2011.
Nineteen river dredges were blown up, sparking country-wide protests by fifteen
thousand poor miners that precipitated the end of the assault and the creation of
a new registry for them.832
Undeterred in his commitment to foreign investors, though, García cast his
security gaze to the southern Puno region near the Bolivian border in June 2011.
Security forces were sent to smash month-long blockades against Vancouver-based
Bear Creek that had virtually shut down most activity in the area. Protesters were
demanding an end to all mining practices in their region, but Bear Creek’s ceo
responded with the predictable claim that the community actually supports his
company and the protesters were really just outside agitators who, to his alarm, “are
not just anti-mining” but are “taking on the flavour of the Aymara resistance to the
presence of the state, as well as foreign and even Peruvian investment.” During this
period, the company met with the Canadian embassy “on numerous occasions,”
according to embassy officials. The initial assault did not abate the protests, however,
instead intensifying the blockades and drawing in Bolivian protesters, according to
a report by the embassy. The security forces responded by firing on protesters at a
local airport, killing four activists. But when the killings ignited ever more militant
protests, the government was forced to revoke Bear Creek’s permit.833
Not only did García pursue policies that escalated conflict, he also actively
undermined even moderate efforts to place limits of resource development and
assuage the indigenous opposition. In June 2010, for example, the Peruvian
Congress passed a bill, written following the violent clashes in Bagua, that would
have adopted parts of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
García, however, blocked the bill, arguing with a hyocrisy befitting an imperial
client that “Peru is for all Peruvians…and, for there to be democracy, we can’t
place limits on future legislatures or governments.”834 García, of course, had already
signed the fta with Canada, the principal aim of which was to lock in the rights of
Canadian multinationals and limit the ability of governments to prioritize social
and environmental concerns.
Humala’s False Promise

Popular disgust at the massacre in Bagua and the more general militarization of
Peruvian neoliberalism under Fujimori, and in the mining zones at least continuing
under Toledo and García, was part of the reason Ollanta Humala won in the first
round of the presidential elections in April 2011. Humala ran on a Centre-Left
ticket, modelling his campaign on that of the moderate Workers Party in Brazil,
and generally offering a nationalist-populist alternative to orthodox neoliberal-
ism. In office, however, Humala’s allegiance to the basic parameters set out by his
predecessors in the mining sector became evident almost immediately.
“In the first two years of the Humala regime,” development studies researcher
Jan Lust points out, “nineteen people have died as a consequence of the repres-
sion of social protests against (transnational) mining capital.”835 Lust goes on to
argue that the
attitude of the Humala regime towards the ongoing anti-mining protests

is identicial to that of previous governments. A state of emergency is
declared in those regions where the struggle against extractive capital is
persistent, protests are criminalized and leaders of social movements are
accused of adhering to an “archaic” ideology, i.e., one that is progressive
and left-wing.836
Humala’s government has also not hesitated in its application of Decree 1085,
first introduced by García’s administration. This decree authorizes the intervention
of armed forces to control internal order and qualifies protesters as “hostile groups,”
while violations of human rights committed by repressive state forces are dealt with
by military tribunals, outside of the reach of civilian scrutiny.837
Humala won the presidency by offering a message of social and economic
reform, of inclusive and sustainable development in Peru. Even within the first
year of his administration, however, the deviation from these promises was self-
evident.838 The pressure on Humala from foreign capital came fast and furious.
During his electoral campaign, one of the most vigorous demands of the most
powerful economic groups in the country, as well as representatives of foreign
capital with interests in the country, was that Humala needed to respect investments
of transnational mining capital.839 A “Chief Risk Officer” of a consultancy firm that
services the mining industry captures where the threat to Canadian capital lies
in Peru. Where Humala “has made Peru a favourable destination for mining and
extractive sector investments,” he notes, “at the local level, mining projects are at a
real risk of disruption, delay or cancellation owing to community opposition.”840
Given Humala’s support for the natural resources industry, conflicts between
companies and communities continued during his presidency. The year 2012 was
one of major social conflict in Peru, where, in his first year in office alone, mining
protests forced two cabinet changes in the Humala government. The dynamic to
the socio-ecological struggles has been conditioned by the same configurations
of political-economic power under the Humala administration as it was under
the García and Toledo regimes. Mega-mining under the control of transnational
capital remains a key feature of capitalist accumulation in Peru under Humala’s
watch. Peasant resistance of a communal, often indigenous, character continues
to explode intermittently in response, with strategic control of territory being one
of the indigenous-peasant movement’s key aims. It is also apparent that the local-
ized, fragmented character of anti-mining protests is limited, on the one hand, by
its relative inability to build a secure, organizational infrastructure at a national
level. On the other hand, new forms of decentralized, anti-bureaucratic forms of
grassroots coordination have emerged that are extremely difficult for the state and
mining companies to coopt or repress entirely.841
In 2012, there were 167 conflicts registered by the Ombudsman. Of these,
123 were denominated socio-environmental, while only 7 were labour conflicts.
Indigenous and peasant movements, mobilizing communally and territorially
against mining companies, and in order to defend their access to land and water,
are the cutting edge of contemporary resistance to neoliberalism and imperialism
in Peru. Their forms of struggle include local defence fronts, the organization of
municipal and provincial referenda on mining developments, marches, regional
strikes, and road blockades. One of the most interesting tactics of late is the
renewal of rondas campesinas in a novel context of anti-mining struggle. Rondas
campesinas were self-defence, communal organizations of peasant and indigenous
communities in the 1970s, designed to prevent cattle theft. During the civil war,
they subsequently played a self-defensive role against incursions by both the armed
forces and paramilitaries, on the one hand, and the Shining Path, on the other.842
Sociologist Lewis Taylor says this about the role of rondas campesinas in anti-
mining mobilizations in the Province of San Marcos and Condebamba Valley:
Historical “memory” in the shape of the legacy of the rondas campesinas

proved invaluable in getting the movement started and facilitated the swift
building of support. In this regard, the crucial point is that the nightwatch
patrols created during the early 1980s still enjoyed widespread legitimacy
among the rural population. Although the rondas had ceased to exist by
the late 1980s, or in a few cases operated clandestinely below the radar
of army and guerrilla, they continued to be viewed with a mixture of
nostalgia and pride, having emerged as an authentic peasant solution to
peasant problems. A model for village-level organization was therefore
readily available, one that was comprehensible, commanded loyalty and
was based on deep-rooted community traditions of discussing issues in
open assemblies.843
As noted, the ongoing socio-ecological protests under Humala have often

involved direct confrontations with Canadian mining firms. Hudbay Minerals,
whose security forces are implicated in extreme violence towards opponents in
Guatemala, including murder, was targeted in a new wave of indigenous protests
against the mining industry in early 2012, forcing Humala, in an effort to con-
tain the social explosion, to ask the company to suspend its operations during
an environmental review.844 Fortuna Silver, opponents of which in Mexico have
been murdered, faced blockades against its Caylloma mine.845 In September 2012,
Talisman withdrew from its oil exploration activities in the Achuar territory of the
Amazon in the face of strident indigenous opposition, even though it claimed to
have consulted with and received support from local communities. As one indig-
enous leader commented on Talisman’s withdrawal:
We have fought long and hard against Talisman’s drilling in our territory
because of the negative environmental and social impacts we have seen
from oil drilling around the world. Now that Talisman is leaving we can
focus on achieving our own vision for development and leave a healthy
territory for future generations.846
That same month, one person was killed and several injured when police attacked
a blockade against Barrick Gold’s Pierina mine in northern Peru. Opponents of
Barrick were protesting a growing water shortage associated with its activities
in the area.847 In 2013, Matsés indigenous people initiated mobilizations against
Canadian company Pacific Rubiales, which is engaging in oil exploration in their
Amazonian home.848
Candente Copper and Cañariaco Norte

In one of the most emblematic popular struggles against Canadian mining capital
in the Humala era, Candente Copper’s Cañariaco Norte project has been targeted
by the Comunidad Campesina San Juan De Kañaris—in the northern Andes of
Lambayeque—which voted against its presence in October 2012 in a popular
referendum, causing a sharp drop in the company’s stock price. The district of San
Juan de Kañaris contains 96 percent of the surface conceded to Candente for its
mining project. The district has roughly fifteen thousand inhabitants, two thirds of
whom are Quechua speaking. 849 Candente ignored the vote, arguing that it was not
binding. The referendum had been carried out in the presence of the national police,
conacami, Red Muqui, and the Comando Unitario de Lucha de Lambayeque,
(Unified Command of the Lambayeque Struggle). The president of the community,
Cristóbal Barrios, asked the company to respect the will of the local population,
as expressed in a popular referendum through secret ballot.850 Candente’s refusal
to adhere to the community’s demands netted no response from the government,
inciting mass protests, blockades of roads leading to the mining camp, and the
temporary detention of three geological engineers by protesters. Demonstrations
spilled over into 2013, with several protesters injured by police, including from
gunshot wounds, while trying to enter the mining site to shut down operations in
late January. In May 2013, Candente had to temporarily suspend its operations in
order to quell the protests.851
According to the Uruguayan sociologist and journalist Raúl Zibechi, the strug-
gle against Candente Copper had three main features, which are representative
of the direction of anti-mining protests in Peru more generally. First, he argues,
the popular referendum has clearly become a method of struggle. It has less to do
with the Peruvian electoral system, or recognition of the community by the state,
than it does with demonstrating communitarian cohesion in resistance against
the presence of the mining company and the coercive apparatuses of the state.
Second, Zibechi contends, the struggle against Candente revealed new forms
and repertoires of collective action in the mining zones of Peru. Again, the rondas
campesinas were important in this case, as rotational committees of self-organized
indigenous peasants camped on the lake nearby, at four thousand metres above
sea level, fighting both the wind and the cold and the ever-present possibility of
terror at the hands of state security or private security forces. Third, Zibechi notes,
the new territorially-based peasant indigenous resistance in Peru’s mining zones
has, over the last fifteen years or so, developed a coherent layer of young leaders,
with a large presence of young women, and solid communitarian links with the
local grassroots.852
We get a sense of the depth of ideological contestation with the neoliberal mining
model present in such movements in the following selections from a February 2013
communiqué of the resistance to Candente Copper:
We demand as a condition for dialogue the immediate retreat of police

forces from our territories, since according to our customary law com-
munal security is to be guaranteed by rondas campesinas [self-defence
community organizations], and there is no need for the presence of such
a large, heavily armed police force in our territory.…We are aboriginal,
communal, and self-defence authorities who are not disposed to giving up
the principals and rights of our peoples, and will not allow subordination
to colonialism, which is bent on breaking up our authentic and natural
structures as indigenous peoples.853
Canadian Mineral Diplomacy

The embassy in Lima and Foreign Affairs in Ottawa have kept a vigilant eye on the
challenges facing Canadian capital in the country, actively working both publicly
and behind the scenes to defend its ability to extract profit from the Peruvian
earth regardless of the social and environmental cost. Peru has received a series of
Canadian cabinet ministers as follow up to the fta signing in 2008, including a trade
mission led by Diane Ablonczy in November 2012, which included representa-
tives from sixteen different companies and a Bay Street law firm.854 Foreign Affairs
minister John Baird travelled to Peru in February 2013 to discuss investment with
Humala and meet with representatives from Canadian companies.855
The embassy, as Ottawa’s eyes, ears, and voice on the ground, has taken a more
directly active role. This has not simply been under the directive of a Conservative
government. During the Liberal government of Paul Martin, the embassy part-
nered with the Americans to strategize about the growing opposition to mining in
Peru. According to a U.S. embassy cable from August 2005 released by Wikileaks,
the “U.S. and Canadian Ambassadors hosted a meeting…for representatives of
international mining companies to review their operating difficulties in Peru and
to coordinate efforts to improve the investment climate.” The cable continues:
“Consensus among the companies is that radical forces (Communist Party-Patria
Roja, drug traffickers and rural defense committees-ronderos) are increasingly
active in rural communities, seeking to target mining operations throughout the
country.” The cable suggests that this was not the first such meeting hosted by the
U.S. and Canadian embassies. One mining executive reportedly “suggested that the
Embassies urge the Catholic Church to rotate bishops operating in these regions.”
A suggestion that “the Ambassadors agreed to consider…but needed specific exam-
ples of anti-mining teachers and priests, who engage in inappropriate activities.”856
The cable also notes the role ngos are playing in the militant opposition to mining
and community mobilization efforts, shedding early light on the Canadian govern-
ment’s subsequent decision to end the funding of ngos throughout the Americas
that it felt were too close to mining critics or were providing such critics with legal
defence support. For example, Canadian Lutheran World Relief, supported by cida
for its work in Peru, was reportedly told that it would lose its government financing
if it did not break its relations with anti-mining organizations.857
In response to blockades in 2010 against the Antamina mine, part-owned by
Canadian Teck Resources, the embassy responded by publishing an article on its
website praising the project’s commitment to social responsibility.858 The embassy
also kept a close eye on the regional Peruvian elections in 2010, reporting to Ottawa
on how the Left fared, and in particular those victorious politicians it identified
as anti-mining. One situation report includes a lengthy discussion about whether
the mayoral victory of Susan Villáran in Lima constituted a meaningful shift to
the Left with implications for the presidential elections in the following year; the
embassy’s assessment, correctly given the victory of Humala, was that it did not.859
Canada’s mining industry itself has also actively intervened in Peruvian politics
to advance its interests. It flexed its muscles in the late stages of the García presi-
dency when the windfall tax debate re-emerged following a period of explosive
unrest, lobbying heavily to help quash it, and again during the 2011 presidential
campaign. During the campaign, the industry threatened divestment if “populist
promises” being raised by some candidates led to a significant increase of royalties
and taxes.860 In a sign of its influence on Peruvian politics, presidential candidate
Alejandro Toledo travelled to Vancouver in December 2010 to meet with Canadian
mining executives to assure them that, if elected “I’m going to call them all to the
table and we’re going to establish the rules of the game and once we agree to that,
we’re going to have no surprises.”861 As Humala moved into first place in the cam-
paign during 2011, harbouring an undeserved reputation among mining executives
for being a radical leftist, the soon-to-be-president likewise assured the industry’s
heavy hitters that “we will always be open to dialogue…We promise to maintain
macroeconomic prudence and a balanced fiscal position.”862 By that stage in his
political career, however, Humala’s attentiveness to the needs of capital would not
be a surprise to investors in Peru anymore than it was to the American embassy,
which had reported in a cable in 2008 that in a meeting with the ambassador, the
future president “warned that dangerous, anti-systemic radicals could ultimately
threaten the stability of the state.” He added that he is a “‘nationalist, not a leftist’”
and only “represents…pragmatic change.”863
One area in which the Canadian state’s intervention in Peru has been especially
pronounced is aid. From 2002 to 2012, cida, through its PeruCan project, spent
C$13.8 million on liberalizing regulatory reforms in the country’s mining industry
to benefit Canadian investors.864 But Peru is also emblematic of the trajectory of

Conservative aid policy. A site of extensive mineral wealth but beset by sharp
opposition to mining, Peru was targeted in cida’s Countries of Focus program in
2009. Following the 2011 election, when populist appeals to mining reform found
an increasingly receptive audience, the Harper government stepped up its financial
intervention in the country’s beleagured natural resources sector through its aid
budget. Canadian aid was used to provide financial support to a government open
to natural resource development, while clearly influencing the trajectory of an
industry dominated by Canadian capital. While cida has committed over C$60
million for Peru’s natural resources sector between 2002 and 2019, most of it is from
2011 onwards, which accounts for the largest component of its total aid budget in
the country. In 2011, for example, it announced C$4.9 million for “training and
capacity development in conflict management” in the extractive sector that will
promote “dialogue at national, regional and local levels.” The program includes
regional conflict offices, “technical assistance” to develop tools to “address specific
conflicts” and “dialogue tables.”865 During his visit to Peru in the spring of 2013, in
which he brought along Canadian investors, Harper announced C$38 million for
Peru’s extractives sector, cloaked in the language of development, including for the
writing of regional laws and regulations in the sector and for the establishment of
a process for environmental impact assessements—all to “help Peru to maximize
the benefits of its natural resources.”866 As Lee Berthiaume points out, Harper’s
visit and funding announcement came at a time when over C$7 billion in mining
projects were bottlenecked in the country’s environmental assessment process.
The Peruvian government was seeking to develop a new streamlined system, which
Canada stepped in to support.867
Of course, funding the creation of an environmental review process or the train-
ing of staff presupposes the existence of a natural resources sector open to and likely
dominated by Canadian capital, whose very existence is hotly contested by many
of the peoples on whose territory it is being developed. “Conflict management”
training means nothing if the Peruvian state, supported by Canada, proceeds with
opening up vast areas of the country to Canadian (and other foreign) companies.
Indeed, insofar as it is premised on the existence of large-scale industrial mining,
the program will inevitably contribute to conflict not diminish it; the real goal is
to provide ideological cover for the draining of billions of dollars in wealth from
indigenous territories while leaving the latter economically and ecologically
impoverished, and to channel anger and militancy into safer, and ultimately use-
less, pathways.
The same premise underlies cida’s direct partnership with mining companies,
formally announced in March 2011 by Minister of International Cooperation
Bev Oda, with a commitment of C$27 million over five years for companies’
csr initiatives in Africa, the Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Peru was one of the
first countries targeted by this new aid strategy. cida backed Barrick’s contested
open-pit mine in Laguna Sur with C$500,000 for csr projects implemented by
World Vision. The strongly-opposed development is located in an area near several
small lakes that provide fresh water for thousands of farmers living downstream.868
As noted above, Peru was also included in cida’s C$5 million Andean Regional
Initiative to “improve dialogue between communities and the private sector.”869
Conclusion
Peru’s future certainly has not been decided. Communities, in the face of immense
obstacles, continue to challenge Canadian capital and defend their land and
ecologies—sometimes with success. The struggle, as elsewhere in Latin America,
remains, however, an uphill battle. The yoke of dependency is not easily broken,
and there are wealthy forces, both Peruvian and external, working to ensure the
status quo of poverty, disposession, and ecological destruction is not upset.
This chapter has sought to convey the dramatic scope and depth of the neolib-
eral mining boom in Peru in recent years, and the critical part played by Canadian
investors and their political backers in pushing this process as far as it has come. It
has demonstrated how the neoliberal era has enabled the extension and intensifica-
tion of long established patterns of natural resource dependency in Peru. We have
also made it clear precisely how Canadian capital today benefits from the legacies
of racist violence endured by indigenous communities in different ways over the
colonial, republican, and Cold War periods. Finally, the chapter has highlighted the
particular ecological dimensions to intensified capitalist extraction in the twenty-
first century, and the way ecological devastation is associated with the dynamics
of Canadian mining investment and the Canadian geopolitical strategy developed
to provide that investment with elaborate infrastructures of diplomatic support
and cover. In all of these senses, it should now be evident that Peru is but one
particularly dramatic case of a set of patterns characteristic of the new Canadian
imperialism in the Americas more generally.
Chapter 7
Tapping the
Veins of Ecuador
L uis Macas has long been a proponent of the simultaneous struggle against colonial
racism endured by indigenous peoples and the exploitation of popular classes
under capitalism. When, in mid-July 2010, we sat in Quito with this ex-president
of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (conaie), and former
presidential candidate for the Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement – New
Country, we began our exchange with his reflections on the government of Rafael
Correa. “From my point of view,” Macas began,
this is neither a socialist nor even a left-wing government. This is a populist

government, whose objective is to challenge the model on a few points,
through a series of modest reforms, so that the model as a whole can con-
tinue advancing. Fundamental changes, radical changes in this country,
are not going to come about with this government.870
Correa first scraped his way into the presidency in the second round of elec-
tions in 2006. This was a political contest scheduled in a time when the prestige of
the indigenous movement—by far the most important popular force in Ecuador
for several decades871—had still to recover from the acute setback it suffered as a
consequence of the movement’s participation in the ill-fated government of Lucio
Gutiérrez.872
The wildly popular process of a Constituent Assembly in 2007 and 2008 offered
up an extended honeymoon for Correa and large cross-sections of society. A
new, progressive Constitution received the approval of 64 percent of voters in a
208
Tapping The Veins Of Ecuador 209
referendum in September 2008, and Correa was re-elected—this time in the first
round—with 52 percent of the popular vote in April 2009. Things began to sour
soon after, however, when Correa’s failure to break with many of the quotidian
banalities of the neoliberal economics he had inherited was difficult to reconcile
with the President’s romantic and ostentatious slogans of “twenty-first century
socialism” and a “Citizen’s Revolution.” Indeed, the President would strain to align
his practical commitment to aggressively reorienting the Ecuadorian economy
toward the extraction of minerals by multinational corporations with his preferred
rhetorical schemas for the next several years.
“But one of the recurrent paradoxes of the bourgeoisie’s political history,”
Catherine Conaghan rightly points out in reference to twentieth-century Latin
America, “lies in its capacity to oppose even the most tepid reformism. Polices
that do not directly damage dominant-class material interests are sometimes
opposed with an intensity seemingly out of proportion to the issues at stake.”873
This incongruity between the actual threat of reform and the hostility of bourgeois
response can be partially explained by the “unpredictability of policy outcomes,”
Conaghan suggests:
Policy shift may replace the devil you know for one you don’t know.
With this principle in mind, the business community can be expected to
oppose any sort of policy change that would upset the environment that
they have already mastered.874
With very little need for alteration, Conaghan’s formula can be generalized in
many respects from the dynamics of the domestic bourgeoisie to the reaction of
imperialist powers operating in Latin America when faced with reformist challenges
to their immediate and longer term interests in the region. Unsurprisingly, then,
just as the relatively minor contestation of the neoliberal status quo offered by the
government of Manuel Zelaya in Honduras was sufficient to provoke a right-wing
coup in June 2009, Correa’s embrace of radical slogans and his early connection to
social movements was seen as a threat, both by sections of the Ecuadorian capitalist
class and imperialist powers alike.
Consequently, as part of Canada’s broader geopolitical intervention in the
Andean region, Ecuador became a strategic focus following Correa’s election.
While in mainstream media commentary Correa’s Ecuador is often lumped together
with Venezuela and Bolivia as part of the Andean red tide challenging imperialist
hegemony in the region, this is, in many ways, a misleading diagnosis: Ecuador
is not as large or politically influential as Venezuela, the Correa government has
not opted to nationalize its natural resources (even partially, as in Bolivia), and its
redistributive and social policies are modest when compared to those in Venezuela.
But the context of relatively strong social movements in Ecuador, many of which
have focused a considerable part of their energies on directly challenging Canadian
mining and oil companies, has nonetheless been viewed as an obstacle to the broad
economic and geopolitical interests of Canada in a region with a resurgent Left.
Especially important to the Canadian state is the potential threat posed to Canadian
multinational companies with substantial investments in the country.875 The Correa
government, elected initially with the support of many social movements, is seen
by Canadian officials as having a disturbingly ambivalent orientation toward the
neoliberal imperial project, especially when compared to its considerably more
pliant neighbours, Peru and Colombia. Ecuador’s new strategic alliances with
Venezuela and Bolivia are also viewed with concern.
Canadian capital has a lot to lose in Ecuador. Canadian economic interests are
relatively extensive in the country, and Canada’s political engagement certainly
reflects this fact. The Canadian government has sought systematically to rein in
any perceived serious movement leftward—beyond the occasional rhetorical flour-
ish—by the Correa government. Canada’s mining industry is the largest in Ecuador,
which is dependent on natural resource exports, and Canadian companies are more
generally one of the principal foreign investors in Ecuador. Canadian interests in the
country grew through the late 1990s and into the 2000s, with over thirty mining
companies with properties by 2008, but the extent of investments ebbed in the face
of growing resistance in the 2000s and the uncertainty of the early stages of the
Correa presidency.876 A Canadian oil company was among several in the industry to
sign exploitation contracts with Ecuador in February 2012.877 Most of the Canadian
mining corporations active in Ecuador are juniors, playing the role of exploration
and determining whether or not the contextual environment—geological, politi-
cal, and economic—is conducive to making profit. Ultimately, most juniors fail to
find sufficiently profitable deposits to attract a major that could then buy them and
bring forward the necessary finances to begin extraction and production; but for
those few juniors that are successful the profits can be enormous.878 In 2010, fait
estimated a cumulative C$1.5 billion invested in the Ecuadorian mining sector
with C$4 billion more possible over the next decade should Canada successfully
put its stamp on the small Andean nation’s developmental path.879 In the words
of one fait appraisal of the political-economic context of Ecuador from 2010:
Ecuador has mineral resource potential similar to neighouring countries

Peru, Chile and Colombia, however it does not have a well developed
mining industry.…there remains significant opposition to mining in
Ecuador from certain Indigenous groups (particularly the Confederation
of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador).880
Thus in its Country Strategy reports the Quito embassy consistently highlights
the pursuit of “trade and investment” and increased “business and investment
opportunities” as one of its “primary interests in Ecuador.”881
Canada’s view of Correa has been coloured by his initial association with anti-
mining activists (an association that unravelled rather quickly after the first years
of his presidency), his government’s suspension of the activities of Canadian
companies EcuaCorriente and Ascendant Copper due to violence and strong
local opposition surrounding their projects, and the generally reformist mood
towards natural resource development surrounding his election. However, as
we discuss below, Correa has been far from unresponsive to Canadian demands.
Despite a hard-line position adopted initially by many social movements and some
members of his government vis-à-vis Canadian capital, this orientation has largely
been defeated inside the government thanks in part to Canada’s mostly behind
-the-scenes intervention. Indeed, Correa has shown a willingness to sit down
on multiple occasions with Canadian executives, embassy officials, and cabinet
ministers to hear their concerns. Yet for Canadian executives, the embassy, and
Ottawa, Correa is still not their guy. His occasionally close relations with sections
of the Ecuadorian Left, and his modest but popular redistributive social policies
are reasons to worry. Correa’s association with Hugo Chávez and his successor
Nicolás Maduro, his participation in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of
Our America (alba), his defaulting on US$3.9 billion in foreign debt obligations,
his renegotiation of contracts with oil multinationals that leave a larger share of
revenues in the hands of the state, and his periodic antagonism against U.S. wishes
in international politics—such as offering WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and
(briefly) National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden asylum—are
not signals of consistent submission to the dominant playmakers in the interna-
tional system.882 Most importantly, Correa’s unwillingness to completely prostrate
Ecuador to Canadian mining interests has meant that, despite Correa’s conflicts
with indigenous and environmental activists, Canada clearly does not trust him,
and this distrust has framed Canadian policy in Ecuador. 883
Canada has aggressively pushed back against all attempts by Ecuador’s govern-
ment and social movements to adopt robust environmental measures, limits on
foreign investors in the natural resources sector, and stronger corporate taxation
and royalty regimes. From the time of Correa’s first election until the passage of a
new mining law just over two years later, Canadian embassy staff, cabinet minis-
ters, and representatives from fait and Natural Resources Canada (nrcan) met
regularly with key Ecuadorian officials, including President Correa and members
of his cabinet. What amounted to the embassy’s full frontal diplomatic assault won
praise from the mining industry. EcuaCorriente executive, Ian Harris, remarked
in 2008 that “the Canadian embassy has worked tirelessly to affect change in the
mining policy.”884 “iamgold benefits from” the “greater diplomatic leverage”

offered by the Canadian government and embassy in Ecuador and the Andean
region, an iamgold executive gushed to the international business press. “We can
access, as needed, prompt diplomatic Canadian support for management issues
in countries like Ecuador, Peru and Colombia,” which is extremely important in
the Andean region, he stresses, because “anti-mining groups, indigenous rights
groups and environmental groups are better organized, better funded and often
more confrontational.”885
The Canadian campaign, coordinated by the embassy in Quito, supported by
Ottawa, and involving Canadian companies themselves, effectively reframed a
national debate on the future of Ecuadorian development and environmental justice
to portray the interests of Canadian investors as those of Ecuadorians and isolate
the call for alternative development strategies. All along, this Canadian strategy
has deployed constant reference to that liberal imperialistic concept of Corporate
Social Responsibility (csr) as cover for its attempt to shape Ecuador’s natural
resources policy to its liking. But this did not constitute the only form of Canadian
intervention in Ecuador. As we discuss in more detail in Chapter 9, the Canadian
government began pouring money into the country following Correa’s election
and the writing of a new constitution by the democratically-elected Constituent
Assembly. In the words of fait, this flow of resources was directed towards the
“promotion of democracy, pluralism and human rights.”886 Canada’s intervention
has been premised on the ideological argument that Correa’s election and the
establishment of a new constitution have posed a threat to Ecuadorian democ-
racy, much like in the Venezuelan case. In the logic of Canadian imperialism, any
government which does not fully conform to the norms of neoliberal policy, and
which stretches, however modestly, the narrow strictures of liberal democracy is
by definition a threat to democracy as such.
The Shifting Political Winds of the Correa Government

In order to navigate the conflicts surrounding mining developments in Ecuador, the
way in which Canadian capital and diplomacy are wrapped up in these conflicts,
and to understand how the Correa government situates itself vis-à-vis the popular
struggles on one side and the interests of multinational capital on the other, it is
important to begin with the complex backdrop of social movement-state relations
over the last number of years. In April 2005, a mass explosion of resentment and
agitation in the streets of the capital against the corruption and betrayal embodied
in the administration of then-President Gutiérrez successfully forced that disgraced
figure from power. The protests were characterized politically by a largely urban
middle-class sentiment—anti-party, anti-neoliberal, and anti-corruption—but
lacked a coherent political project of their own.887 Rather than signifying a deep
rearticulation of popular sector power or organizational capacity—indeed, the
indigenous movement was almost completely absent from the scene—the April
2005 revolt instead encapsulated a relatively spontaneous expression of disdain for
the political elite and inchoate rage against the ongoing imposition of neoliberal
economic restructuring in the country.
This was the vacuum into which Correa’s newly constructed political coali-
tion, Alianza País (Country Alliance, ap), positioned itself during the 2006
presidential campaign. His main right-wing contender, the multimillionaire banana
magnate Álvaro Noboa, received more votes than Correa in the first round, but
was sufficiently hated by the popular sectors that a second-round rally for the ap
circumvented his rise to the presidency. The marketing team of ap pitched Correa
as a heterodox outsider, an anti-neoliberal economist who—as a consequence of
missionary work as a youngster—spoke Kichwa and was familiar with the needs
and aspirations of the country’s indigenous, peasant, and urban popular sectors. The
2007–2008 Constituent Assembly process solidified the President’s early popular-
ity, as the country polarized around a hard-right camp represented by Noboa, and a
progressive poll led by Correa. Within the Constituent Assembly, as a result of this
wider societal divarication, a “mega-bloc” of the Left emerged around Correa, which
included Pachakutik, the Maoist Movimiento Popular Democrático (Democratic
Popular Movement, mpd), and the Izquierda Democrática (Democratic Left),
although always under the hegemonic guidance of Correa and the ap.888
As noted, the new constitution that materialized from the assembly was popu-
larly approved through a referendum, and the depth with which its commitments
to social, political, and economic change resonated with Ecuadorians was expressed
in Correa’s majority victory in the first round of presidential elections in 2009. “The
new constitution opened the door for a series of profound changes,” argues Alberto
Acosta, a former Minister of Energy and Mines in Correa’s first administration and
the President of the Constituent Assembly in 2007 and 2008:889
Its statutes guarantee the construction of a plurinational state. This means

the incorporation for the first time of marginalized groups, like indigenous
peoples and nationalities and Afro-Ecuadorians. The constitution man-
dates respect for their unique ways of life and community organizing,
and a new way of structuring the state in general.890
Likewise, the new constitution includes probably the most progressive envi-
ronmental commitments of any constitution in the world. The text ensures, for
example, an allegiance “to ‘living well,’ or Sumak Kawsay, in Quichua,” Acosta
explains, “which is an entirely distinct way of understanding development.” A part
of this new understanding is reflected in the fact that the “Constitution guarantees
the rights of nature. Nature is a subject with rights in the Constitution. Ecuador’s
Constitution is the only one in the world with this characteristic.”891 The constitu-
tion also solidified an important declaration of sovereignty made by Correa during
his 2006 election campaign—that he would not renew a ten-year lease on the
Manta U.S. air base on the Pacific coast of the country. Indeed, the new constitution
officially prohibited foreign military bases on Ecuadorian soil, and the last of the
U.S. troops stationed at Manta had departed the country by September 2009.892
In keeping with the spirit of the Constitution, the 2009 electoral campaign
featured Correa’s promise of the “radicalization of the Citizen’s Revolution.”893 It
quickly became apparent, however, that there would be a chasm between the con-
tents of the paper Constitution and the lived reality of the country under Correa’s
rule.894 Shortly after the 2009 elections, Correa shifted decisively to the Right,
presenting “infantile Leftism, environmentalism and indigenism” as the preemi-
nent threats to economic modernization and progress, particularly as regards the
President’s plans to shift the extractive focus of the economy from oil to mining.895
Correa allowed the disintegration of the “mega-bloc” of parliamentary Left forces
that had held together loosely during the Constituent Assembly, as the mpd and
Pachakutik abandoned the coalition in the face of the rightward drift of the ap.
Key business federations that had been hostile to the first Correa administration
notably altered their discourse and practical orientation toward the government
in the post-2009 conjuncture, presumably as a reward for the government’s newly
invigorated commitment to strong elements of neoliberal continuity.896 Correa, now
openly “allied with traditional, right-wing businessmen,” the Uruguayan sociolo-
gist Raúl Zibechi points out, “reserves his most poisonous darts for the Left.”897
By the end of 2009, the government was in open conflict with the indigenous
movement. Mobilizations were launched against proposed water legislation that
would have effectively privatized lakes and rivers in the interests of hydroelectrical
development and the water needs of multinational mining corporations, at the
expense of peasant and indigenous communities. Teachers unions and university
professors, meanwhile, were locked in a confrontation with the government over
a new law ostensibly about regulating higher education, but actually designed to
weaken union power. Throughout 2010, a series of conflicts continued to convulse
the country. Indigenous movements agitated against mining projects, while public
sector workers engaged in defensive battles to defend their most basic of labour
rights. Indeed, according to sociologist Mario Unda, the essence of 2010 can be
captured in the phrase, “a project of capitalist modernization confronting social
movements.”898
A high point in recent indigenous struggle took place on June 5 of that year.
Ecuador was hosting a presidential summit of The Bolivarian Alliance for the
Peoples of Our America (alba) in the majority-Quichua, Andean city of Otavalo.

Despite the fact that the gathering was ostensibly called to discuss themes of
indigenous and Afro-Latin American peoples within the alba countries, the prin-
cipal indigenous organization of Ecuador, conaie, was not on the guest list. The
indigenous movement consequently organized a march of three thousand people
through the city, and symbolically installed a parallel Plurinational Parliament in
the streets and plazas.899 Police repressed the march and serious charges of ter-
rorism and sabotage were laid against key indigenous leaders, including Marlon
Santi of conaie. “When the presidents of the countries involved in the alba were
meeting here in Ecuador, in Otavalo, they talked about indigenous rights,” Santi
explained to us:
But the main representatives of the indigenous movement in the country,

that is to say conaie, were never invited to the meeting. And we wanted
to have a voice in alba. We wanted to say to the governments of alba
that without the indigenous peoples of Latin America alba can’t exist.
We will not be excluded any longer. And for saying this in protests outside
the alba meeting we have been given this new name of terrorists and
saboteurs. We’re supposedly against the nation. But we believe the truth
will rise to the surface about these claims.900
At the time of writing, approximately two hundred activists are facing charges
of terrorism and sabotage with the possibility of lengthy prison terms.901 For Luis
Macas, in the same interview, the motivation for targeting the indigenous move-
ment with such repression is clear enough. “It’s not that the government wants
simply to get rid of the Indians, or that it is racism for racism’s sake. The objective
is to liquidate the indigenous movement in this country, to dismantle and destroy
this movement.” The rationale grows out of the fact that “the indigenous movement
is the principal social and political actor in the country that has struggled against
the economic model, against neoliberalism.” From Macas’ perspective, “Correa
wants to have a green light to do as he pleases. And his project of development is
rooted in the exploitation of natural resources. We in the indigenous movement
have an emphatically different conceptualization of Mother Nature and are say-
ing no.” The conflicts over mining are likely to intensify further in coming months
and years. Closed-door negotiations with multinational corporations seeking to
secure large-scale mining projects were due to be completed in July of 2012, but
have not yet come to fruition. While the details remain secret, it is estimated that
US$3.5 billion in foreign direct investment will flood the mining sector from 2012
forward.902 If past patterns are repeated, Canadian imperial mining capital is likely
to play a defining role.
Delfín Tenesaca, president of ecuarunari, the Andean highland indigenous

organization, painted a clear picture of struggle in the mining sector when we met
with him in August 2011. “For us, it’s very clear,” Tenesaca said,
all of a sudden, a bureaucrat or technocrat appears from the government

and tells indigenous communities, “let us enter these territories because
we have to exploit this mine.” When you resist, you are sanctioned, receive
death threats and all the rest. This has happened throughout the country.
Anyone who opposes this, anyone who resists, is considered a terrorist.903
President Correa is “clashing with indigenous communities,” the Financial Times

reports. “Once he claimed to champion their rights. Now his government accuses
them of terrorism and sabotage.”904
The growing socio-political cleavages between organized social movements and
the Correa government led to the formation of a new political coalition, the Unidad
Plurinacional de las Izquierdas (Plurinational Unity of the Lefts, upi) in the run
up to the February 2013 presidential elections. The upi selected Acosta as their
presidential candidate. However, buoyed by high and steady commodity prices on
the international market, growing state revenues, declining rates of poverty, and
popular social policies, Correa won the elections handily—Correa landed 57 per-
cent of the vote, up from 52 percent in 2009, while the main right-wing contender,
a conservative banker Guillermo Lasso, came second with 23 percent, and Acosta
was crushed with only 3 percent.905 The still visible and undeniable social weight
of popular environmental and indigenous movements in the country—even if
weaker than at their height in the 1990s and early 2000s—has not found a clear,
independent expression in the electoral arena during the Correa period.
Birth Pains of the Neoliberal Mining Order in Ecuador

Since the second half of the nineteenth century Ecuadorian capitalism has been
alternately fueled or exhausted by the booms and busts of its central export com-
modities—in succession, cacao, bananas, oil, and, now, mining minerals.906 The
principal metallic mineral resources under its soil are gold, silver, copper, and
antimony. There are also indications of a substantial presence of other minerals,
such as lead, zinc, and platinum. According to the figures offered by President
Correa in 2007, based on the optimistic projections of private mining companies,
the mining reserves in Ecuador are worth roughly US$200 billion, compared to
the remaining oil reserves, which reach an estimated value of US$70 billion.907
In accordance with the Washington Consensus in neoliberal restructuring that
began to open up Latin America to a free market transformation in the 1980s
and 1990s, Ecuador began its specific process of attracting foreign private
investment in the mining sector with a vision of building zones of industrial

mining on a grand scale.
The process was facilitated through a series of new laws, issuing in a mining
regime which stressed the reduction of state oversight in the sector, advantages
for foreign mining companies in terms of financial support, guaranteed access to
potential mining territories, the flexibilization of labour conditions, the weakening
of related environmental legislation, the sharing of geological information with
multinationals, and the coerced phasing-out of informal markets of artisanal mining
to make room for the advance of large-scale industrial companies.908 The principal
laws through which this new orientation in mining was advanced were the 1991
Ley 126 de Minería (Mining Law 126), the 2000 Ley para la Promoción de la
Inversión y de la Participación Ciudadana (Law for the Promotion of Investment
and Citizen Participation), and, in 2001, the Reglamento General Sustitutivo del
Reglamento General de la Ley de Minería (Replacement General Regulation of the
Mining Law). These domestic laws were implemented in part through the World
Bank-funded program, Proyecto de Asistencia Técnica para la Gestión Ambiental
(Project for Technical Assistance in Environmental Management) and, later, the
Proyecto para el Desarrollo Minero y Control Ambiental (Project for Mining
Development and Environmental Control). In the language of the World Bank,
these initiatives were designed to modernize mining activity and environmental
management in the country while generating an improved overall knowledge of
available natural resources in the country.909
This new juridical framework allowed for a veritable flood of foreign investment
in mining, and the granting of a huge number of new concessions concentrated in
relatively few hands. By 2008, prior to a mining mandate that put these concessions
in a legal limbo (more on that later), the geographic area conceded to mining explo-
ration amounted to roughly 20 percent of Ecuadorian territory, including ostensibly
protected environmental and forested areas, indigenous territories, archeological
sites, and agricultural zones.910 This was the opening to which Canadian mining
capital responded with gusto. According to Alberto Acosta:
Canadian companies were the primary beneficiaries of the new disposi-

tion of the mining laws throughout the early 2000s. These laws were meant
to strengthen the presence of mining companies in Ecuador. This was a
project pushed forward by the World Bank, and which received support
from the governments of that period. We’re talking about the neoliberal
epoch. Canadian companies were the ones who took advantage of the
new laws with the greatest enthusiasm, to invest in Ecuador. Canadian
companies have expanded their presence in various regions of the country,
in the Condor mountain range, in the Intag valley, and elsewhere. They’ve
managed to win a huge number of concessions. Ecuador gave out over

5,000 concessions in an irresponsible manner, without any controls or
criteria. The great majority of these concessions were concentrated in the
hands of just a few companies, Canadian companies.911
With the acceleration in concessions, it is unsurprising that well before Correa

assumed the presidency conflicts between indigenous and peasant communities
and Canadian mining companies were proliferating throughout the country. The
principal mineral deposits of interest to mining companies are located on the eastern
and western slopes of the Andean mountain range in the North, and the Condor
mountain range in the South—as noted, these are regions characterized by high
levels of biodiversity, fragile ecosystems, indigenous and peasant territories, and are
the points of origin for many of the country’s rivers. When the scope of exploration
by multinational mining companies in Ecuador experienced a concerted uptick
in the early 2000s—in the wake of the liberalization policies and in response to
the beginning of an extended commodities boom driven largely by the dynamic
growth of China—a diverse range of socio-ecological and political conflicts began
to develop, very often involving Canadian corporations.
One early conflict that would resonate politically throughout the country in sub-
sequent years developed in the town of El Pangui, in the canton of the same name,
situated in the Condor mountain range, in the provinces of Moronoa Santiago and
Zamora Chinchipe, along the border with Peru. One of the most biodiverse areas
in the world, the area’s landscape is characterized mainly by animal husbandry,
square-pond fisheries, and wild forests. EcuaCorrientes S.A. (ecsa), the subsidi-
ary of the Canadian mining giant Corriente Resources, began exploring the region
for minerals as early as 2000. As part of the company’s preemptive campaign of
corporate social responsibility (csr), specific leaders of the predominant Shuar
indigenous community in the area were hired to work directly for the company in
public relations, and small development projects were funded by the corporation.912
However, the Shuar people’s extended history of militant confrontation with oil
multinationals made it unlikely that their organizational capacities would be easily
undone, even by a sophisticated and well-financed csr campaign.913
And, indeed, what had been largely invisible, subterranean stirrings of discontent
in the early 2000s had by mid-2006 escalated sufficient momentum to mobilize
significant above-ground resistance to the presence of Corriente Resources and
other multinational mining enterprises. In October 2006, a week-long march of
260 kilometers brought protesters north from El Pangui to Jimbotono where a
demonstration was staged demanding the end of all mining activities and associ-
ated hydroelectric dams. This action was followed in November by a march of the
Shuar community of Warintz to the mining camp of Corriente Resources from
which they evicted the workers. The collective resistance of the Warintz community
was then joined by others, and actions extended to a series of other camps where
workers were also evicted—a Shuar leader referred to the process as, “cleansing our
territories of mining.”914 Momentum continued to draw hundreds of protesters in
the coming days to the main mining camp in El Pangui, where they fought—with
rocks, sticks, and dynamite—workers, police, military, and the pro-mining factions
of the Shuar community.
The actions culminated in the early days of December 2006, when, after an
assembly of one thousand in the coliseum of El Pangui, anti-mining activists
marched on the Mirador mining camp, where they were assaulted with bullets and
smoke grenades in a three-day standoff with the coercive forces of the state and
the company. At the close of events, the government was forced to suspend the
activities of Corriente Resources in both of the relevant provinces.915 In the heated
context of that period, Canadian embassy officials “encouraged the Ecuadorian
government to facilitate discussion between EcuaCorriente and local residents
so that…conflicts could be resolved peacefully,” as if the fundamental conflict of
interests at stake was reducible merely to a misunderstanding on the part of the
indigenous and peasant opposition.916
Next to the conflict in El Pangui, probably the most well-known Ecuadorian
instance of anti-mining resistance in the 2000s took place in Intag, a humid and
tropical valley situated in the canton of Cotacachi, north of Quito. A copper
deposit known as Junín is located within the valley. The first geological exploration
for mining minerals in the area was carried out by the Ecuadorian and Belgian
governments in the 1980s, but it was the Metal Mining Agency of Japan, financed
by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, that confirmed a large copper
deposit in 1990. By 1993, exploration of the area was taken over by Bishi Metals, a
subsidiary of the Japanese giant Mitsubishi. Social protest in the 1990s drove Bitshi
Metals out of the site in 1997. After an idle period in which the concession was
abandoned, Ascendant Copper Corporation, a junior company from Vancouver,
acquired the deposit.917 The ecological ngo Acción Ecológica (Ecological Action)
played a crucial role in making contact over the course of the 1990s with com-
munities inside the mestizo (mixed race) peasant settlements that populate the
Intag region. Acción Ecológica conducted environmental workshops for the
communities, generating collective consciousness around the socio-ecological
risks involved in large-scale mining projects driven by multinational corporations.
Out of this initial phase of organizing, a local group was formed called decoin.
It drew on youth organizations, a priest inspired by liberation theology, and a
variety of community environmental activists.918 Once Bitshi Metals had been
driven out in 1997, these organizations took advantage of the idle period (until
2002) to solidify their organizational bases and organic links with local peasants,
as well as to develop a national profile and international linkages through the

work of Acción Ecológica.
Once Ascendant Copper set up shop in 2002, the movement was in a position
to regularly mobilize opposition to the company’s presence in Intag, and, on several
occasions, to burn down the centre of operations of mining exploration in the area.
The conflict is ongoing, but the resistance has been able at least to slow to a crawl
any significant exploration in the region.919 In response to the activist initiatives,
Ascendant has deployed combined tactics of cooptation and coercion. For example,
the company provides petty but important handouts to those communities who
work with it, building roads, bridges, schools, health clinics, and other infrastructure
that the state has never properly provided in the area. These efforts are accompa-
nied by ideological campaigns in which informants are paid to ride local transit,
where they praise the gains that mining development would bring to the area, and
denounce the way that decoin and other social movement organizations are stand-
ing in the way of this potential prosperity.920 The company always also wields a club,
however, in the event that promotional campaigns and clientelist ties to coopera-
tive communities prove insufficient to quell anti-mining opposition. Coercion has
assumed the form of death threats against organizers of the resistance, disruption
of regular mail and emails of activists, and a massive law suit against the principal
newspaper of the anti-mining mobilizers, Periódico Intag.921 In the company’s thea-
tre of intimidation, a useful prop has been César Villacís, who was placed on the
company’s board of directors. Villacís is a former Ecuadorian general and former
head of the secret police, and in his frequent visits to Junín he lets the communities
know that he has the backing of the Ecuadorian military. Such underlying forms of
intimidation sometimes explode into open violence, as in a series of cases in 2004
in which pro-mining groups, visibly armed, were mobilized to physically assault the
opposition and destroy their video equipment.922 Alberto Acosta spoke to us about
his personal experience with such tactics during this period:
We can also see how some Canadian companies, such as Ascendant

Copper, have tried to impose their objectives in an authoritarian manner
in the country. They have established schemes of paramilitarism, in order
to divide the communities of Intag, to intimidate these communities,
and to impose mining activities. I was personally a witness to how this
company mobilized people to protest against my presence as [former]
Minister of Energy and Mines at the time because my politics ran against
this type of corruption. I remember receiving threats and having rocks
thrown at me during a meeting in the city of Ibarra, in the province of
Imbabura. We saw how they acted, and how they threatened the commu-
nities. Thanks to the struggles of these very communities…we managed
to disarm these paramilitaries, and achieved some justice. But there are
still many problems in the region. I believe it’s important to highlight
these events and what they signify.923
In July 2010, we met with Gloria Chicaiza, Coordinator of the Mining Campaign
at Acción Ecológica. A clinical psychologist by training, Chicaiza has been involved
in a series of urban popular movements since the 1980s, and has been a member
of Acción Ecológica since 1996. Through her work she has been accompanying
communities involved in anti-mining struggles continuously since 1997. “Just as
in much of the rest of Latin America,” she told us, “Ecuador is a place of expansion
for the activities of mining companies. In our case, above all, the presence of junior
Canadian companies is most obvious, companies that have imposed themselves on
this scenario.”924 Chicaiza turned immediately to the case of alleged assassinations
related to the Canadian junior Ascendant Copper, and pointed out that there was a
law suit against the company in Canada for abuses carried out in Ecuador. Beginning
in 2009, three villagers from Intag, represented by a progressive Canadian lawyer,
attempted to sue Copper Mesa Mining Corporation (tsx:cux; formerly Ascendant
Copper) and the Toronto Stock Exchange for failing to take sufficient action to
reduce the risk facing community leaders who have encountered violence and
threats as a result of their opposition to copper mining. An Ontario court threw out
the lawsuit in May 2010, stating that “silence from the Directors cannot establish
the requisite personal nexus between the acts and omissions of the Directors and
what allegedly occurred in Ecuador to the plaintiffs.”925 But Chicaiza stressed that
Ascendant’s activities were not anomalous:
[There are] other companies that are active in the Condor mountain
range in the South, engaging in a range of nefarious activities, which have
almost no visibility. In the South you have Ecuacorriente, or Corriente
Resources, that has shifted some of its concessions to a Chinese mining
company. Kinross is there, and a number of other companies with lower
profiles. In the case of the Intag valley, it was possible to trace respon-
sibility to Ascendant Copper, but in much of the rest of the country it
has been more difficult. Other companies’ activities are similar, but they
haven’t been connected with dates and facts in the same way. But we have
testimonies of the people that have been driven from their land, others
who have been physically attacked. Their testimonies say that those
responsible were working for these mining companies. There have been
violent confrontations.
Chicaiza described a public relations strategy of divide and rule, of cooptation

and the promotion of false dreams, whereby:
Canadian mining companies have the strategy of coming in, causing

enormous conflicts, dividing communities, and creating illusions about
the standards of their practices back in Canada that are not true. We’ve
had indigenous Canadians visit us who have told us that indigenous peo-
ple in Canada are worse off than indigenous people in this country. The
Canadian state doesn’t even respect basic international conventions on
indigenous rights; indigenous peoples have lost their own territories. But
Canadian mining companies talk about the high standards that they live
by back home, that they’re from the Global North, and that everything
that happens in the North is better. The idea is to convince people that
they obey rigid standards back home and that they will do so when they
mine here. So they have come and have tried to invent this image so as
to conceal the real face of these companies.
What is more, these companies receive “overwhelming diplomatic support”

inside of Ecuador, through which the Canadian embassy has created for the min-
ing companies what Chicaiza calls a “diplomatic shelter” consisting of constant
resources and official ambassadorial backing for attempts to build support for
mining companies within the affected communities. The companies “distribute
money in these localities in order to neutralize and to overcome local resistance,”
creating tremendous acrimony and social damage in the communities as a result.
However, what is more important to note, according to Chicaiza, is that despite
this resource-rich infrastructure of diplomatic support and monies to bribe com-
munities, resistance has persisted:
In almost no community where there is a Canadian mining company have

they been able to wipe out resistance altogether, in spite of their attempts
to distribute money, in spite of their attempts to divide communities.
There are attempts to criminalize communities, to bring activists to trial,
targeting leaders of these movements, in an effort to decapitate the anti-
mining movements. Charges are brought against indigenous and peasant
activists who don’t have resources to defend themselves, and whose time
is therefore tied up in these proceedings. This is all a sign from the com-
panies that they won’t respect the demands that the communities have.
These activities have generated grave levels of convulsion in the country.
When a mining project is installed, the conflict starts. But we still have
hope, as the communities in resistance do, that we can stop this activity,
that the resistance will triumph, that these local models of development
will triumph. There are highs and lows in the struggle.
Between 2000 and 2006, difficult and often invisible groundwork was being
done by organizers such as Father Juan de la Cruz, and Gloria Chicaiza and Luis
Suárez of Acción Ecológica, and grassroots organizations such as the Coordinadora
Campesina Popular (Popular Peasant Coordinator), to link the localized, and some-
times isolated, conflicts in the North and South of Ecuador and build a cohesive
anti-mining organization on a national scale that could have a political impact on
the orientation of the state in this economic sector. In 2007, the Coordinadora
Nacional por la Defensa de la Vida y la Soberanía (National Coordinator for the
Defence of Life and Sovereignty) was formed as part of this effort, but because of
its association with the traditionally top-down organizing of Maoism in Ecuador, it
was viewed negatively by some other movements, such as the Movimiento Indígena
Ecuatoriano (Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement) and quickly split and fragmented
into various distinct anti-mining groupings. Other regional anti-mining organiza-
tions that emerged in this period included the Frente de Resistencia Sur a la Minería
a Gran Escala (Resistance Front of the South against Large-Scale Mining), formed
in 2007, and the Asamblea de los Pueblos (Assembly of Peoples, ap), formed in
2008.926 In spite of the failure of the various movements to cohere around a single
national front of resistance, it was plainly evident that the anti-mining resistance
was one of the most important movements developing in the country over this
period, and was in a position to impact, at least initially, the character of the early
years of the Correa government.
Crucially, the strength of these local struggles and regional organizations was
evident in the Constituent Assembly process and the mining mandate that eventu-
ally passed within it, representing a significant thorn in the side of multinational
mining capital generally, and Canadian mining capital specifically. We will return
to the specificities of that mandate in a moment, after a brief aside on the activities
of the Canadian embassy in the immediate aftermath of Correa’s election, and the
lead up to the Constituent Assembly. The Canadian officials were aware that the
anti-mining movement was growing in strength, in spite of its relative dispersion
across different areas of the country.
The Embassy Makes its Move

Despite the violence surrounding the Canadian investment and the fierce opposi-
tion it has faced, the Canadian government nonetheless offered the industry its full
support when the old mining law was thrown out by the Correa government and
the industry’s future became the subject of a very heated national debate. As soon
as Correa was elected on October 15, 2006—and before he assumed office—the
embassy set to work meeting with mining executives and discussing “advocacy and
interest protection.” The embassy initiated The Canadian Club of Investors after
Correa’s election to demonstrate to the new government “that Canadian investors
are united in Ecuador.”927 Canadian companies also established a new chapter

of the Canada-Ecuador Chamber of Commerce in Cuenca which, according to
the ambassador, will “better protect Canadian interests in mining.” In just three
months following the election, thirty meetings were held between mining company
executives and the ambassador and embassy staff as they prepared their strategy to
confront the incoming government. Shortly thereafter, regular meetings between
Canadians in Ecuador, from both the embassy and industry, and the new govern-
ment representatives were initiated. Ambassador Christian Lapointe reported to
Ottawa about a meeting with Correa in December “during which almost half of
the discussion were [sic] dedicated to Canadian mining interests.” There was also a
“long discussion” from this same period that the “HOM [Head of Mission] had with
new Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade about this [mining].”928 On
the csr front—now a universal component of Canada’s attempt to present mining
predation with a softer face—the Conscorcio Ecuatoriano para la Responsabilidad
Social (Ecuadorian Consortium for Social Responsibility, ceres) was organized
as a front composed of companies, industry organizations, and pro-mining ngos.
With assistance from the embassy, it began promoting the fiction of the socially
responsible and environmentally friendly character of the Canadian mining
industry through public relations campaigns, including csr seminars organized
for mining staff and Ecuadorian officials.929 While the embassy played a central
role in devising the Canadian response to the emerging developments on the
ground in the country following Correa’s election, the Ecuador file clearly became
a fait priority in Ottawa as well, which was in constant contact with embassy staff
both to receive situational reports and to advise on working with mining execu-
tives—suggesting what kind of support that could be expected from the Canadian
government, offering expertise in trade and investment law, making suggestions
on public relations campaigns around csr, and coordinating work between the
embassy and Natural Resources Canada (nrcan).930
The embassy’s initial fears were only reinforced by what it perceived as a possible
threat to private property in a draft of the constitution prepared by the Assembly.
The embassy reported with alarm that “private property is only guaranteed if it has
a social objective”—apparently forgetting about the social character of Canadian
mining investment it pronounces to anyone willing to listen.931 Canadian companies
were also watching the Assembly closely and, as reported in Ecuador, trying to
influence its decisions as mining policy was being discussed, leading the Assembly
president to complain specifically about the pressure from the mining industry.932
With customary cynicism, this was also the first period in which the embassy,
with support from Ottawa, brought an indigenous “representative” from Canada
to promote Canadian mining interests by extolling the virtues of the practices
of Canadian companies at home. An April 2007 wine and cheese presentation
on mining for embassy staff, Ecuadorian officials, and mining executives, for
example, featured indigenous representatives from Ecuador and Canada “who
include responsible mining in their vision of economic development.”933 This was
a tactic that would be repeated after the Constituent Assembly released its mining
mandate in early 2008, upping the stakes in the fight around a new mining regime.
Don Clarke from the Black River First Nation in Manitoba, travelled to Ecuador in
2007 soon after Correa’s election as part of the effort to demonstrate the social and
environmental responsibility of Canadian mining, and the benefits that potentially
await Ecuador’s indigenous communities should large-scale industrial Canadian
mining be allowed to proceed. Clarke brought his upbeat message that mining can
be good for indigenous peoples—a position contradicted by many indigenous
peoples in Canada, whose participation in Ecuador was obviously not encouraged
by the embassy or industry. As for concerns that Canadian companies represent a
serious environmental threat, Clarke stressed that “the Canadian mining industry
is committed to responsible mining,” and quoted Jerry Asp, a mining advocate
from the Tahltan Nation in British Columbia who was brought to Guatemala in
2004 by the Canadian embassy to defend Canadian investors (and whose British
Columbian office was subsequently occupied by elders from his community seeking
his removal from power for selling out to corporate interests): “One of the biggest
things,” Clarke quotes Asp as saying, “is our people hopefully will recognize they
are being used by the environmental groups” who are “the modern missionary.”934
Mining Mandate
Perhaps the most striking signal that Canadian officials were correct to worry about
the early dynamics of the Correa regime vis-à-vis the interests of Canadian mining
capital in Ecuador, was the mining mandate issued by the Constituent Assembly
on April 18, 2008. The mandate was passed in a period in which the anti-mining
movement, albeit dispersed regionally and lacking a coherent national body, had
clear political weight in the country, and was able to push the central features of
the national dispute over multinational mining development to the centre stage
of mainstream political debate, not least in the Constituent Assembly. Moreover,
this was still a time in which the “mega-bloc” of the Left within the Constituent
Assembly remained intact, and social movement allies such as Alberto Acosta,
still Minister of Mines and Energy and President of the Constituent Assembly,
and Mónica Chuji, Assembly member and President of the Working Group on
Natural Resources and Biodiversity continued to exercise some power in terms
of pulling the Correa administration leftward from the inside.935
In this setting, the mandate was passed, putting a moratorium on any new
mining concessions and signaling that the government would re-establish control
over many of the thousands of concessions that had been granted to multinational
companies over the neoliberal period. According to the mandate, concessions
that were located in ecologically fragile zones or protected areas or which had
been acquired by companies that had not carried out requisite consultations with
affected communities would be reclaimed by the state without compensation.
The mandate also established that further legal reform was to be carried out with
the intention of reversing any concessions that had been acquired through insider
information by ex-functionaries of the Ministry of Energy and Mines and other
politicians from the governments of the neoliberal period. It also suggested a cap
whereby title holders would be restricted to a maximum of three concessions, and
through this the prohibition of monopolies in the mining sector would be assured.
These far-reaching reforms led immediately to a fall in share value among the
Canadian corporations that dominate the industry in the country.936 When the
mandate was passed, scarcely 7 percent of the concessions that had been granted
were in a phase of exploitation, with the remaining 93 percent still in various
phases of speculation and exploration.937 The mandate was thus an attempt to
normalize the activity of industrial mining that was to go ahead in the country,
and to open up space for a wide-ranging national debate on its character. It called
for the establishment of a state mining company with the capacity to intervene,
regulate, and manage the sector, while investing in technologies that would limit
future dependency on foreign multinationals.938
Thus the mandate seemed to indicate a fairly decisive victory for the anti-mining
movements in terms of their ability to wrestle major structural reforms from the
Correa government in potentially the most important component of the economy
in coming years and decades. At this phase in the Correa government, moreover,
the mandate was suggestive of the limitations of Canadian diplomatic interven-
tion thus far, given that Canada was diametrically opposed to the contents of the
mandate. The movements and the internal Left within the governing coalition,
then, seemed to be on the rise, whereas the internal Right of the coalition, includ-
ing Correa, as well as the various manifestations of Canadian imperial power,
seemed to be on the wane. Unfortunately, this was but a fleeting expression of the
balance of forces in the mining industry, particularly, but also in the political and
economic sphere more generally, which was to be reversed fairly decisively over
the year following the mandate.
Soon after the mandate was issued, Correa began to publicly reassure foreign
private mining capital that their fundamental interests would be protected despite
any appearances to the contrary.939 Correa began to distance himself rhetorically and
politically from social movements, and escalated levels of state repression against
sectors of the anti-mining movement. A simultaneous battle commenced against
the internal Left of the ruling coalition, leading to the resignations of Acosta and
Chují, as well as the collapse of the “mega-bloc.” Many of the central components
of the mandate were not implemented, and a process of rushed legislation was set
in motion to establish a new mining law. No truly national debate on the potential
contents of the law and its relationship to the mandate and the constitution was
facilitated by the Correa government and, indeed, vocal and visible opponents
received the blunt end of the state’s club.940
Directed and supported in Ottawa by fait, cida, and nrcan, and working in
concert with Canadian companies, the embassy set out immediately to defeat the
Mining mandate and protect Canadian investors through a strategy of aggressive
diplomatic intervention. “Canadian interests,” an embassy report notes follow-
ing the issuance of the decree, “will be heavily affected by this decision.”941 The
embassy, as the ambassador, Christian Lapointe, assuaged an iamgold executive,
was immediately “undertaking diplomatic actions at the highest level possible here
in Ecuador.”942 A new law was to be written 180 days following the issuance of the
mandate—an opening taken by the Canadians to reframe the debate around mining
and challenge the push for stronger environmental protections and checks on the
power of foreign capital that was occuring most stridently outside of the President’s
office. As ambassador Lapointe wrote to Ottawa, the mandate appeared in his view
to contradict Correa’s openness to “responsible” large-scale mining, suggesting that
the President, while perhaps less compliant than preferred, could nonetheless be
pressured to protect Canadian interests and contain those forces inside and outside
his government advocating for more far-reaching reforms.
Likewise, Patrick Anderson, Chief Executive of Aurelian Resources, dis-
tinguished between Correa and a section of his party connected to the social
movements, remarking that “it’s an extremely left-wing faction of the president’s
party who have an anti-mining agenda.”943 Thus while the embassy defended
Canadian mining publicly to Ecuadorians, it also spent considerable energy behind
the scenes pressuring Correa and his ministers directly. Indeed, Correa became a
strong—if never fully subservient—advocate of Canadian interests and, as Jennifer
Moore and Teresa Velásquez argue, played a central role in advancing Canada’s
agenda of presenting Canadian companies
as key investors who would help Ecuador realize its national objectives,…
[while] any debate about asserting the country’s ability to choose a
different economic model and move toward reducing dependency on
extractive industries was squelched and its proponents characterized as
turncoats: self-interested and infantile, subversive and manipulated by
foreign interests.944
In fact, on the day of the mandate’s release Correa spoke with executives of
Canadian companies and issued a press release that sought to placate supporters
of mining while addressing those concerned about (but not outright opposed
to) the consequences of large-scale projects. Correa’s public position in the face
of the mandate echoed the pr line promoted by the embassy and industry: reaf-
firm a commitment to large-scale industrial mining while making reference to a
commitment to social responsibility, and cite Canadian companies as exemplars
of socially responsible mining, the record to the contrary notwithstanding.945 The
embassy and industry meetings with Correa and his cabinet clearly influenced how
the President responded to the mandate.
While the embassy and industry seemed alarmed by the issuance of the man-
date, and were concerned for the future of Canadian interests, they clearly had
prior knowledge of the strong possibility of a mandate; it was not a complete
surprise, in other words. They had actually been discussing the potential reforms
to the mining regime with the Ministry of Mines and Energy months before the
mandate was even passed, and had been given reassurances that the concessions
of several companies would be unaffected.946 The ambassador and the embassy
trade representatives began monthly meetings in March—a few weeks before the
mandate was passed—with Ecuador’s Vice-Minister of International Commerce
to discuss trade and investment relations, and Lapointe met with Canadian com-
pany representatives to discuss strategy for these meetings.947 These pre-mandate
meetings were a proactive response, part of the diplomatic strategy going back to
before Correa’s inauguration, toward establishing a pattern of firm engagement
with Correa and other officials.
The meetings continued after the mandate was decreed. During the weeks imme-
diately following the mandate’s release, Correa, his advisors, and representatives
from the Ministry of Mines and Energy met a number times with mining company
representatives and Canadian ambassador Christian Lapointe. Formal diplomatic
letters were also sent by Canada’s Ministers for International Trade, Foreign
Affairs, Natural Resources, and Finance, and the ambassador explicitly called for
the Correa government to defend Canadian investment.948 In this series of meet-
ings, the Canadians made demands for clarity on the future of their investments,
reminded their interlocutors of the general importance of Canadian investment
to Ecuador’s fragile economy, and stressed the rights of Canadian investors under
the bilateral fipa.949 The mandate, they put forward bluntly, created a “total loss
of credibility by our investors in Ecuador.”950 During one of the meetings Correa,
according to an Ecuadorian official, counselled the Canadians to “stay calm” as the
government develops its new mining law, and invited mining leaders to participate
in the National Mining Dialogue (established for Ecuadorians to discuss a new
mining law) in late April—a goal the embassy was discussing with Ottawa prior
to the issuing of the mining mandate.951
The embassy and industry also accompanied their aggressive defense of

Canadian interests during meetings with Ecuadorian government officials with the
reminder of Canada’s commitment to social responsibility, which Correa could use
as a selling point with his supporters who were more ambivalent than he towards
mining. This is a theme that came up repeatedly following the mandate, with
every opportunity taken to influence national debate and government thinking.
The National Mining Dialogue, for instance, bringing together Ecuadorian gov-
ernment officials, environmental ngos, and industry representatives provided an
opportunity in a national-level formal process, with Correa’s invitation, to position
Canada as a socially and environmentally friendly ally of Ecuadorian development
sensitivies. The Canadians, as made clear in communications between the embassy
and Ottawa, were hoping to leverage their experience with the concept of csr and
the National Roundtable process in Canada—called by the Harper government
in the face of a growing push for binding legislation to hold Canadian companies
responsible for their practices abroad—to be able to insert themselves into the
debate in Ecuador in general and the National Mining Dialogue in particular as
people that care about the environment and have a track record in dialoguing with
local indigenous communities and environmentalists.
The fact that the National Roundtable was largely condemned by environmen-
talists in Canada as a cover for inaction was, of course, ignored by Canadians in
Ecuador—nor was it broached by Correa.952 At the same time, the Responsible
Mining Council, another creation of the industry with the support of the embassy,
was “in constant dialogue with the Government of Ecuador,”953 “in an effort,” the
embassy reported to Ottawa, “to brand Canadian companies working in Ecuador
as responsible and respectful of human rights and the environment.”954 The
embassy also organized csr seminars bringing together Canadian companies and
Ecuadorian officials, and, according to a fait report on mining in Ecuador, nrcan
“sent video material which highlights Canadian mining companies operating in
sensitive environments and success stories on csr practices in Canada.”955
Despite the undeniably terrible track record of Canadian mining corporations
in Ecuador, Correa, who was open to Canadian influence from the time of his first
election, took up the mantra pushed by the embassy and industry and began to
frame Canadian investors as the leading edge of social and environmental respon-
sibility. This was an important strategy given that there was clearly widespread
concern amongst Ecuadorians of the potential environmental harms associated
with the practices of these companies, including among, importantly from Correa’s
perspective, those not already outrightly opposed to large-scale mining.
As noted above, the mandate period initiated the first wave of a pattern of
frequent trips to Ecuador by high-level Canadian cabinet ministers as well as rep-
resentatives from state ministeries. Minister of Trade, Michael Fortier, travelled
to Ecuador in mid-August 2008, according to embassy reports, to “meet with key

decision makers” from Ecuador and demonstrate “support for…Canadian mining
investment in the region.”956 Fortier also held a roundtable with company leaders
to learn what “the Canadian government [can] do to further support trade with
Ecuador.”957 The company executives responded that continued visits by Canadian
political leaders would be an important tool. Fortier’s meetings with various
Ecuadorian political leaders and constant reiteration of the need for clarity for
investors, of the rights of Canadian capital under international law and bilateral
treaties, and of the socially and environmentally responsible nature of mining
companies “sent a strong message to Ecuadorian officials that Canadian companies
are not alone in their commercial interests in Ecuador, as the GoC [Government
of Canada] stands in solidarity with them.”958
The Director General for Latin America and the Caribbean and former ambas-
sador to Guatemala, James Lambert (whose mining advocacy we discuss in the
chapter on Guatemala), followed Fortier to Ecuador in December 2008 to meet
with officials from Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
the Minister of Mines and Energy, the Presidential advisor on mining, and mining
executives.959 As their counterparts did in Central America, the embassy in Quito
used the annual meetings in Toronto of the Prospectors and Developers Association
to strengthen relations with key decision makers in the local country, inviting the
Ministers for Mining and the Environment to accompany them to Toronto in the
spring of 2008 in the midst of a heated national debate.
It was not just representatives from fait that visited Ecuador after the mandate
to push for its defeat. Included among those travelling from Canada were Health
Canada officials, who, along with some indigenous peoples from Canada they
sponsored, participated in a conference organized by Health Canada addressing
indigenous health determinants in Ecuador in the fall of 2008. The trip was finan-
cially supported by the embassy.960 Natural Resources Canada (nrcan) also played
an important role in what amounted to a “whole-of-government” approach to
protecting Canadian capital against the wishes of local communities in Ecuador.961
One Canadian company, EcuaCorriente—or, in the words of the embassy, “one of
our largest mining clients”—sent an Ecuadorian-based executive to Ottawa in the
fall of 2008, which included a meeting with nrcan officials, in order to help the
latter “get a better sense of the situation” in the Andean country and “how GoC
can support [the industry] from Ottawa.”962
Meanwhile, tensions mounted between supporters of the mining mandate, on
the one hand, and the industry and the Correa presidency, on the other, as the
National Mining Dialogue proceeded. In this context, the embassy and industry
gave close watch to their Ecuadorian opponents. Activities of the anti-mining
organizations, including demonstrations and even public forums (such as one
featuring a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Malcolm Rogge) were noted and

discussed by embassy staff. The embassy discussed with mining companies differ-
ent possibilities of how to respond to a conaie mobilization in October 2008 that
demanded Canadian companies leave the country.963 Canadian companies, with
the support of the embassy and the Correa government, helped to organize pro-
mining demonstrations in several cities “to create sympathy and support from the
people.”964 Correa spoke at a pro-mining demonstration on May 6, 2008 in front of
the Presidential Palace shortly after the mandate was decreed, defending Canadian
mining projects as “responsible.” Thousands of people were allegedly bused in from
around the country in a rally touting the jobs and economic development offered
by the industry. The pro-mining demonstrations were part of what the embassy
called a “pro-image campaign,” which also included “an aggressive advertisement
campaign, in favour of the development of mining in Ecuador.”965
The aggressive, all-out drive against the mandate by the embassy, Canadian
cabinet leaders, and the various institutions of the Canadian state, provided mining
companies with considerable access to Ecuadorian decision-makers, as noted above.
But this was not simply a medium for lobbying; the industry gained the opportunity,
during both the Mining Dialogue and, more importantly, its private meetings with
Ecuadorian cabinet ministers and mining ministry officials, to provide direct input
on the drafting of the new mining law. As one embassy report notes, “Company’s
[sic] reiterated their strong participation in the drafting of the new mining legisla-
tion and will work closely with the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Ecuador on this
front.”966 As we discuss below, the new law that emerged from the heated national
debate following the mandate was not considered a full success by the industry
or embassy. During the writing process, mining executives expressed concerns to
Correa and officials with the Ministry of Mines and Energy (who did not appear
to be consistently on the same page as Correa in terms of how stringent the new
law should be towards foreign investors) over perceived “ambiguity,” particularly
as it related to the potential arbitrariness of the tax regime, requirements to restart
projects on previously-owned concessions and its possible unconstitutionality
vis-à-vis the new constitution (the exact nature of this latter concern is redacted in
the embassy report; anti-mining activists have themselves pointed to the conflict
between the mining law and the rights of nature in the constitution and the water
law, which they argue trump the rights of foreign investors).967 Nevertheless, the
law clearly represented a major advance for the Canadians over the mandate and,
by extension, a significant setback for the anti-mining and environmental move-
ments. The mandate was ultimately defeated, and a new law was submitted to
Correa by the Ministry of Mines and Energy eighty dates following the issuance
of the mandate—one hundred days before the deadline.968
The New Mining Law

On January 12, 2009, a new mining law was hurriedly signed by Correa with
the support of the Alianza País majority in an interim Legislative and Oversight
Commission.969
Without doubt, the new mining law represented a break with the orthodox
neoliberal juridical framework that it replaced. The state returned to the indus-
try with a more elaborate regulatory role, and a National Mining Company was
established. The new law required environmental impact studies to be reviewed
by the Ministry of Environment before any concessions would be granted. It also
required companies to receive an environmental license from the Ministry before
proceeding with exploration and exploitation. Companies must provide annual
environmental reports to the state, and mining concessions can be revoked if they
are shown to cause negative social, cultural, or environmental harm. In terms of the
royalty and taxation regime governing the industry, the law restored royalties as a
legal concept in the industry, with the state to receive no less than 5 percent of the
value of sales of minerals in royalties, with 60 percent of those royalties earmarked
for local development projects run by municipal governments. In effect, royalty
rates will need to be negotiated with the government on a case-by-case basis.
In addition, a range of separate tax increases were introduced that are to provide
the state with a greater share of the revenue generated from mineral extraction,
particularly in the case of extraordinary profits.970 Included in the new taxation
system is a 15 percent net profit sharing mechanism for workers and social projects,
on top of income tax (25 percent) and value added tax (12 percent) on export
activities. Concessions are also limited to five thousand hectares and contracts are
capped at twenty-five years in duration.
However, the new law does not correspond with several environmental, plu-
ricultural, and social aspects of the new constitution, and falls far short of the
guiding principles of the mining mandate that preceded it. The law is weak on
limiting monopolization of concessions in few hands, on the socio-environmental
regulation of the mining industry, and allows for little participation of affected
communities in mining processes, while simultaneously granting considerable
discretionary power to the President. It is vital, too, that the law does not oblige
companies or the government to obtain previous free and informed consent from
affected communities before industrial mining projects are put in place.971 In a sign
of the limits of the reforms embedded in the new law, it is important to point out that
it was optimistically received by various Canadian mining companies with invest-
ments in the country, and has spurred ongoing opposition from social movements.
The Canadian attitude to the law is summed up by an embassy statement,
which suggested the following: “Although not an ideal mining law in its current
form, it does open the sector to commercial mining;” with the President of the
Chamber of mines adding that the “story must begin somewhere.”972 Soon after
the final text of the mining law was published, Correa had lunch with Lapointe,
after which he declared that “it’s impressive all the things we could achieve with
Canada…a country that has a history of peace and development.”973 By March
13, 2009, suspensions on company activities that had been halted by the mandate
were lifted, although companies were told that they needed updated environmental
approval before moving ahead—a process that has been prone to long delays in
some cases.974 Considering the basic satisfaction of multinational mining capital,
taken together with the wider political turn to the Right by the Correa regime fol-
lowing the President’s re-election in 2009, and again in 2013—including public
admonishments of the anti-mining, indigenous, and environmental movements
and repression when necessary—it is safe to say that the principal progressive com-
ponents of the mandate, driven by anti-mining activists and their allies in the early
period of the Correa administration, have been defeated. Canadian diplomacy on
the part of Canadian mining capital in the country played no small part in this defeat.
In short, the defeat of the mining mandate was a victory for the Canadian state
and capital, though the new law was far from ideal from the Canadians’ point of
view. While clearly wanting Canadian investment, Correa could not simply ignore
critics of the industry both inside and outside of his government, some of whom
supported his candidacy; nor was Correa willing to totally prostrate himself to
Ottawa and Canadian investors. Thus the law, while a setback for supporters
of the mandate, does not fully conform to neoliberal standards. And a number
of companies were still concerned about the lack of clarity regarding taxes and
environmental permits, which would have an impact on the individual negotia-
tions they embarked on with the government in order to get permission to restart
their projects. As a consequence, the aggressive diplomatic push that commenced
with Correa’s election continued as Canada intervened to ensure that Canadian
“companies…have a stable and transparent investment environment in which to
carry out their operations.”975 Given the recent history of the relationship between
the embassy and industry and Correa, the Canadians felt confident that, however
unsatisfactory the new law was, they could nevertheless use Correa to continue to
steer the mining regime in a responsible direction. Following Correa’s re-election
in April 2009 the embassy observes in a report to Ottawa that “Correa has shown
support for Canadian mining investment” and that, given the problems it has faced
in the region more broadly, with Correa “Canada has a unique strategic regional
opportunity in Ecuador.”976 This should put to rest any belief that the Correa
government poses a radical alternative or anti-imperialist development model.
The day after the mining law was passed, in fact, ambassador Lapointe, keeping
up his due diligence in support of Canadian investment, had a lunch meeting with
Correa.977 The lunch meeting led to a meeting two weeks later in February between
Correa, several of his cabinet ministers, and Canadian investors to discuss their
future investments in the country, and the yet-to-be written regulations needed to
implement the new mining law. (The major mining companies were represented,
plus snc Lavalin, aecon Construction, and Canadian Commercial Corporation.)
This seems to have led to direct Canadian participation in the development of the
regulations. According to a subsequent report by an official with nrcan, iamgold,
“through the Ecuador Mining Council, is working in cooperation with the relevant
Ministries towards the preparation of the necessary regulations.”978 Two of the big-
gest issues with the law that the industry was trying to address in the regulations was
the need for a clearer and, in their view, fairer tax structure that does not impede
their profit making beyond the acceptable neoliberal bounds, and the protection
of the concessions of the many Canadian exploration companies that the Correa
government felt had been granted without accountability to the Ministry of Mines
and Energy by previous administrations. These points would continue to be a focus
of the embassy and industry in meetings with Ecuadorian cabinet ministers into
the summer of 2009.979
The efforts of the embassy and industry to weaken the new mining regime imme-
diately following the enactment of the new law were buttressed by Harper’s cabinet
and representatives of fait and nrcan, who continued their active intervention
into Ecuadorian domestic politics. Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade,
travelled to Ecuador in August 2009 and met mining executives, who told him
firsthand of their concerns around getting permits and operations approved since
the new law came into effect, complaining about the lack of rule of law. He also met
with the Ecuadorian Vice President, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister
for Mines and Petroleum, and the Mayor of Quito to “reinforce the importance of
a clear, stable, and transparent investment climate for Canadian mining investors
and their urgent need to receive authorization to resume exploration activities.”980
Day’s trip was followed that October with a visit to Ottawa and Toronto by a dozen
officials of Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who met with fait and nrcan
representatives in Ottawa and representatives of the mining industry in Toronto,
and by several high-level meetings in Ecuador involving Canadian and Ecuadorian
cabinet ministers, senior Ecuadorian civil servants, and Canadian executives.981
Minister of State and key Cabinet pointman on Honduras following the 2009
coup against Zelaya, Peter Kent, also paid a visit to Ecuador in August 2010, which,
according to the ambassador, “served as a valuable catalyst for Embassy access to
key players.”982 Kent met mining and Quiport executives; representatives of Citizen
Participation Organization, which is a watchdog of the Ecuadorian government’s
media policy (one of the criticisms often leveled at Correa’s government at home
and abroad is its ostensible attack on media independence); and the Latin American
Centre for Political Studies, a democracy promotion organization operating in

Ecuador. He held a roundtable with Canadian companies to discuss the political
situation in Ecuador.983 Kent also met bilaterally with Correa in May 2010 during a
visit to Buenos Aires to discuss “the benefits of Canadian investment” in Ecuador,
as well as with Ecuador’s Minister of International Relations in June during the
oas General Assembly in Lima, again to discuss Canadian investment interests.984
Finally, in September, Canadian Foreign Affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon, met
with Ecuadorian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Commerce and Integration at the
U.N. to again discuss the status of mining in the Andean nation.985
pdac conferences also continued to offer an important opportunity to influ-
ence key Ecuadorian policymakers. The embassy stepped up its support for the
Ecuadorian delegation for the 2009 edition of the annual celebration of Canadian
mining, bringing twenty-six delegates to “strengthen relationships” between the
industry and Ecuadorian officials. The Ecuadorian delegates discussed the new
mining law with mining executives and officials from nrcan and fait, including the
Director General for Latin America and the Caribbean and former ambassador to
Guatemala, James Lambert.986 In 2010, the Quito embassy brought along the Vice-
Minister of Mines, a lawyer from the Vice-Ministry, and a pro-mining indigenous
Shuar representative who met with fait and nrcan delegates to discuss building
support in indigenous communities. A Kinross representative, writing to the Quito
embassy, noted that pdac 2010 is “a really key opportunity for us.”987 According to
an embassy report from the conference, the Ecuadorian government representa-
tives said that the government will authorize new mining exploration—which, as
noted, was a main Canadian concern—“at a slow pace, in order to avoid…social
and political confrontations from many fronts including the Ecuadorian Indigenous
Conferederation conaie.”988
The Ecuadorian delegation and Canadian and industry representatives also used
the pdac gathering to discuss direct Canadian assistance for the development of
the new industrial mining regime through nrcan. This includes training Ecuador’s
Ministry of Natural and Non-Renewable Resources staff, and the creation of tech-
nical training programs for a new mining workforce, including for mechanical and
civil engineers, geologists, industrial mainentance and mechanics, and production
workers.989 This discussion around direct support for the development of the min-
ing industry continued in Ecuador as the embassy and industry continued to push
for a clearer permitting process for Canadian companies.
In July 2010, representatives of the Canadian industry’s environmental front,
the Responsible Mining Council of Ecuador, met with embassy staff. According
to an embassy report, the meeting involved “high level officials from Ecuadorian
Ministries,” and discussion included, “the needs of the Ecuadorian mining industry
for labour and training,” and the “national training plan,” as well as the “capacity
building needs within the Ministries of Environment and Water,” which are cen-
tral to the process of licensing companies and permitting them to proceed with
exploration and exploitation. These needs were then passed on to Correa.990 The
embassy, mining company executives, and fait officials in Ottawa also discussed
bringing in people from nrcan and the Canadian Environmental Agency to train
Ecuadorian Ministry of Environment and Mining staff.991 The University of British
Columbia had already entered into a partnership with the Universidades del Azuay
and Cuenca for a mining geology diploma, which, as the embassy’s trade commis-
sioner commented to a mining executive, is important for companies’ “future needs
for skilled human resources.”992
As was the case during the mandate period, Canadian First Nation “representa-
tives” were once again used to stump for Canadian mining capital. At this point
in the mining debate, Correa publicly heralded Canadian mining’s relations with
indigenous peoples in Canada as part of his Canadian-csr propaganda pitch to
those Ecuadorians still wavering on large-scale mining. In early 2009, Correa
reflected in a radio interview, clearly echoing sentiments undoubtedly expressed
by the embassy and industry, that
due to the experience Canada has with responsible mining, the first to
have benefitted are the ancestral peoples which is why I ask their ambas-
sador to bring representatives of those ancient peoples to give their
testimony and show the fallacy of those who lead certain radical groups
that (try to) speak for all but do not represent anybody.993
The implication of course is that the “radical groups” in Ecuador are both mis-
taken and irrational in their opposition, as their indigenous counterparts in Canada
support and benefit from Canadian mining. The trip to which Correa was referring
involved Glen Nolan, Chief of the Missanabie Cree, who has a long history of
involvement in mining and would become pdac’s first indigenous president. On
the occasion, Nolan stressed Canada’s and the industry’s commitment to csr.994 The
embassy also organized a trip to Canada for Ecuadorian Mining Ministry officials
to meet with Canadian counterparts and pro-mining indigenous groups. They
asked Kinross if they had a mine in Canada near an indigenous group that would
be “a good example” of relations with indigenous communities: Kinross replied
that, unfortunately, they did not have operating mines in Canada.995
Furthermore, the embassy dangled the carrot of badly-needed infrastructural
support in exchange for greater security for mining companies. Short on investment
capital options in the wake of its refusal to payback a relatively small amount of
international foreign debt, the Correa government was unable to attain the neces-
sary financing for its growing infrastructural needs on its own. One request for
infrastructural investment and credit made to the ambassador during a meeting to

which he was invited by Ecuador’s Deputy Minister of International Trade came,
Lapointe comments, “now that President Correa is delivering on his promise of
a new mining law and opening of the sector.” But not fully satisfied with the new
law and the Deputy Minister’s plea that, in the words of Lapointe, “the President
delivered on his part of the deal,” the ambassador “repeatedly stated that resolu-
tion of our mining company concerns must be seen before any discussions can
begin” and demanded that “the Ministry of Mines re-establish a dialogue with all
[i.e., exploration companies too] Canadian companies as a soon as possible.” The
ambassador concluded in his report to Ottawa “that Ecuador would be increasingly
dependent on the mining sector, and had limited options concerning partners and
financing.”996 Canada also used the opportunity of a discussion on a possible loan to
Ecuador at the Inter-American Development Bank to publicly chastize the country.
Although ultimately supporting the iadb loan, it raised concerns about Ecuador’s
respect for foreign investment and whether it is economically responsible enough
to be granted loans. (Moreover, this is not the only case in which Canada has used
multilateral aid loans as an opportunity to punish, or threaten to punish, a poor
country that has not acted responsibly [in the eyes of Canadian government and
industry] vis-à-vis Canadian mining companies. Another of many possible exam-
ples is Canada’s attempt to stop the Paris Club from writing down a portion of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo’s debt in 2009 and 2010.)997
The concern Canadian companies harboured about the mining law and its
unpredictable tax regime proved well-placed when the Ecuadorian government
declared in 2011 that it intended to push for higher royalty rates on projects than
the minimum of 5 percent required in the new law.998 The Ecuadorian government’s
position was behind Andrew Shisko’s (who replaced Christian Lapointe as ambas-
sador) rebuke of the mining tax regime in an interview on national radio as one of
the most expensive in the world.999 The government’s position prompted Kinross,
which had received both environmental and water permits in 2009 but still had to
negotiate its tax commitments, to denounce the tax regime and to refuse to sign an
agreement with the government to start its Fruta del Norte project. The company
complained that under the new tax regime it would have to pay just over half of
its post-production income in taxes and royalties, and if the price of gold were to
rise above US$1,700/ounce, 70 percent of the extra (or windfall) earnings would
be collected by the government. Deciding that such taxation was excessive—in a
context in which it faced financial problems involving a significant writedown on
a major African investment—its ceo, Tye Burt, threatened the company “won’t
proceed there [in Ecuador] unless we have a better economic deal.” Ecuador’s
Minister of Mines and Energy, Wilson Pastor, responded by publicly declaring that
Kinross was unreasonable and no deal could be concluded.1000 However, Correa
himself suggested that Kinross’s demands were “reasonable,” and supported a legal
reform in August 2012 that delays taxes until after a company has earned back its
initial investment and establishes a maximum threshold on royalties, the lack of
which had been a major concern of Kinross and other companies.1001
Several years after the mining mandate, and with a new law in place, the
Canadians, as we argued above, have had important victories. The more radical
stance toward Canadian investors in the indigenous and environmental move-
ments, which received expression in the mandate, has been, for the time being at
least, contained. And Correa, who was never in the radical camp (despite state-
ments critical of mining during his first campaign and halting a couple Canadian
projects early in his first mandate) but whose nationalist inclinations represented
a real uncertainty for Canada, was pushed decisively in favour of Canadian capital
in the context of Canada’s full-spectrum diplomatic assault on Ecuador. Questions
lingered regarding the restarting of concessions, the establishment of new contracts
and the windfall tax, and these uncertainties have engendered moments of ten-
sion between the Ecuadorian government and Canadian capital and the embassy,
which, to be sure, would have preferred a more unambiguously neoliberal mining
law with lower and standardized taxes. Continuing investor angst regarding the new
political context in Ecuador has been expressed in the decisions of several mining
companies. EcuaCorriente sold its assets to the Chinese Tongling Non-Ferrous
Metals in 2009. In June 2013, after two years of negotiations and still no deal,
Kinross finally decided to walk away from the country, exasperated and unwilling
to accept the terms of the windfall tax. In June 2012, iamgold announced that
it sold its Quimsacocha project to Canadian junior company, inv Metals. Delays
with the Ecuadorian government and political risks were cited as the reason for
the sale by iamgold.
However, in its deal with inv, iamgold will actually get 40 to 45 percent owner-
ship of the junior company, suggesting that it “is downloading all its Ecuador risk
to a junior while maintaining a hefty stake in what could be a profitable mining
project if it gets developed.”1002 A large number of Canadian exploration companies
also remain. If this signals anything, it is that however uncertain it may have been
in recent years for Canadians, and however much the Correa government makes
recourse to nationalist rhetoric, these things were not perceived as perilous threats
to a significant segment of Canadian capital, thanks in large part to the aggressive
intervention by the embassy, Ottawa, and the industry itself.1003 With the mandate
defeated and a new law in place, a Kinross executive observed in 2009 that the gov-
ernment had “clarified the mining law very significantly…[and] sets the framework
quite clearly for future development.”1004 The Correa government has also publicly
displayed its ongoing support for large-scale private mining initiatives with the
deployment of security forces against anti-mining opponents after complaints by
the industry. In the fall of 2010, a Kinross executive used his connections to “inform
authorities about the extent of informal mining taking place…for authorities to
take the appropriate decision.”1005 Correa ultimately dispatched two thousand
soldiers to El Dorado in the province of Zamora after a group of indigenous arti-
sanal miners—“illegal” miners in the words of the embassy—erected a blockade
against Kinross concessions. The embassy, in a report to Ottawa, suggests happily
that Correa’s aggressive response “has demonstrated clearly that the Ecuadorian
government is increasingly serious about developing and protecting the mining
industry.”1006 In 2011, Correa dispatched the military to Esmeraldas province in
the northwestern part of the country to forcefully stop artisanal gold mine opera-
tions, and the military blew up equipment belonging to these small-scale miners
in the process.1007 In the end, Correa’s Ecuador is open to large-scale transnational
mining; it is only the cut of the profit that the Ecuadorian government is seeking
which Canadians find objectionable. Ultimately, while the Correa government is
trying to squeeze Canadian companies for a bigger slice of the profit pie, Correa is
not a threat to their overall interests. Instead, the biggest danger facing Canadian
investors is grassroots community resistance.
The Sanctity of Foreign Investments

Another problem for Canadian capital regarding investment predictability and
stability—and a reminder that Correa can only be trusted so far—came when the
Correa government informed Canada that it was withdrawing from their Foreign
Investment Protection Agreement (fipa) on October 30, 2010. The Canada-
Ecuador fipa came into force in 1997, almost a decade before Correa’s election.
Ecuador had previously announced the termination of thirteen of its Bilateral
Investment Treaties (the more common name for what Canada calls fipas) in
2009, arguing that since their dispute arbitrations take place at the International
Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington, they violate the
new constitution which stipulates that Ecuadorian laws cannot be adjudicated
outside of South America. Under terms of the fipa, Ecuador can withdraw one
year after formally announcing its intention to do so.
Canada treated the announcement not as a formal declaration but as an
informal expression of the intention to eventually do so. Ecuador’s musing about
withdrawing from the Treaty, at a time when uncertainty of a new mining law was
swirling around Canadian investors, predictably sparked more frustration and
pressure from Canada. During his visit in August 2010 to discuss Canadian invest-
ment more generally, Kent reminded his Ecuadorian interlocutors that Canada
expects the Correa government to respect the fipa. In a letter to the Ecuadorian-
Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Guayaquil, Ambassador Shisko stressed that
the possible end of the bilateral investment treaty “is causing profound concern
in Canada. A stable and transparent investment environment is fundamental for
the success of Canadian investment in Ecuador”’— a point which he has repeated
in the Ecuadorian media.1008 In March 2012, the Vice Minister for the Americas,
Jon Allen, travelled to Ecuador to meet with Ecuadorian officials and stress the
importance of the fipa to Canada, and came away from his meetings, after declaring
the potential commitment of more Canadian investment in natural resources and
hydroelectricity, confident that the treaty would not be cancelled.1009
The Uses of Aid

In 2005, before Correa was elected, cida decided to close the bilateral program
(the last funded program wrapped up in 2010) when the Liberal government
began to concentrate aid on a smaller group of countries. The Harper government
continued with the concentrated aid focus and shifted its attention towards the
Andes, though they did not include Ecuador in the revamped structure. Bolivia,
Colombia, and Peru were targeted instead because they were identified as having
governments amenable to free trade, and aid policy was seen as a way of helping to
advance that agenda.1010 The original Liberal decision to end bilateral aid to Ecuador
was initially left untouched by the Conservatives and was apparently viewed as
unproblematic by cida itself. As one of many examples of the politicization of
Canadian aid policy, however, the termination of cida’s bilateral aid program
became a point of concern and discussion amongst officials in cida, fait, and
the mining industry after Correa’s election, and particularly after Correa actually
requested greater developmental aid from Canada. The discussion centred on
whether the bilateral program could be revived, and if not, given that a decision
to terminate had already been set in motion, what if anything could take its place.
While some form of aid was identified as important to supporting the expansion
of Canadian capital in the country, there was significant dicussion on whether cida
could be used as a way of responding to threats to the mining industry and supporting
Canadian companies by promoting Canadian-csr “capacity building” or “indigenous
exchanges” between the two countries.1011 The pressure to rethink cida’s Ecuador
orientation came from fait, which has been in more direct and regular contact with
Canadian investors in Ecuador, to push for reinstatement of the bilateral program
in some fashion, whereas cida officials were more hestitant given they had already
begun the process of winding the program down. Bilateral aid of some kind, accord-
ing to fait officials, “could be a positive result to support our trade interests.”1012
Ultimately, however, bilateral programming was not restored, as the concentrated
aid monies had already been budgeted and cida’s bilateral aid envelope was already
terminated. The discussion proceeded to how to make up for this gap.
cida officials noted that multilateral funding to Ecuador should be highlighted

in discussion with the Ecuadorian government, but fait representatives clearly
were unsatisfied with this reponse. There was also discussion of increasing the
funding for the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (budgeted through cida but
disbursed through the embassy). One suggestion discussed was to double it to
C$200,000 (still a very small amount relative to what a Country of Focus program
would entail) to “allow for more strategic engagement.”1013
When the Vice Minister for the Americas, Jon Allen, travelled to Ecuador in
March 2012 to discuss the fipa, he also suggested Canadian aid could continue
outside the bilateral cida framework to help develop the country’s mining and
environmental regulatory system.1014 In fact, this project was being discussed by
fait and cida officials as early as 2009, when they saw an opening after Correa
made some overtures to fostering stronger bilateral relations with Canada—the
Canadians identified it as an opportunity to influence mining policy under the
framework of csr development.1015 In the meantime, cida did finance an fdi-
promotion course for corpei led by an ex-Canadian diplomat.1016 corpei is a
Guayaquil-based organization that builds relations between the government and
private capital with the aim of promoting foreign investment and Ecuador’s further
insertion into the international market.
Conclusion
This chapter has sought to provide a mapping of the systematic role of Canadian
imperialism in seeking to undermine any and all extension of meaningful democ-
racy in Ecuador in an effort to protect the considerable investments of Canadian
corporations in mining and other sectors, as well as to protect the longer term
strategic interests of Canadian geopolitics in Ecuador and South America more
generally. Moreover, we have tried to convey the complexity of the present political
conjuncture in the country, as Correa distances himself from the demands of popu-
lar social movements while, simultaneously, entering into conflict with imperialism
on a number of fronts. The Canadian embassy in Quito and the decision-makers in
Ottawa, alongside and in conjunction with representatives of Canadian corpora-
tions with operations in Ecuador, have attempted to navigate this complexity in
such a way as to ensure the best of possible outcomes for Canadian capital.
Correa is clearly not their preferred interlocutor, but the Canadians have recog-
nized that his administration is amenable to meeting most of their key, underlying
needs in the area of mining, as well as in other sectors of the economy. While Canada
has been unable to secure the entirety of its desires in the Ecuadorian economy
and political outcomes, this chapter has revealed the extent to which Ottawa was
capable of helping turn around many of the anti-neoliberal components of the
mining mandate and establishing a new legal terrain in which its companies can
continue to profit. However, Canadian power is hardly omnipotent or immutable in
the country. The biggest threat to Canadian imperialism in Ecuador, and therefore
also the most important reservoir of hope, remains the ebb and flow of anti-mining
resistance which, despite concerted efforts of repression and cooptation from on
high, has not been successfully tamed.
Chapter 8
Venezuela’s Threat
of a Good Example
T he inner-city parish of La Vega sits in the lush mountain terrain of Western

Caracas. Roughly 130,000 poor residents are cordoned off sociologically from
nearby El Paraíso, a wealthy neighborhood that supplies the clients for the upscale
shopping centre that separates the two communities. In La Vega, the bottom 20
percent of households live on US$125 per month, while the average family income
is US$409. Well over a third of households are led by a single mother. Proletarians
of mixed African, indigenous, and European ancestries populate the barrio’s infor-
mal economies.1017
In Venezuela, one of the most urbanized countries in Latin America, these
households constitute a key demographic base of chavismo. Six years ago, the jour-
nalist Jacobo Rivero asked a 50-year-old black woman from La Vega what would
happen if Chávez died. The Bolivarian process “is irreversible,” she told him, its
roots are too deep to be easily torn asunder in the absence of el comandante. In the
years since Chávez’s rise to the presidency in 1999—an interval of unprecedented
popular political participation and education for the poor—the woman had learned,
for the first time, the history of African slavery and the stories of her ancestors. The
historical roots of injustice were being demystified, their causes sorted out. Dignity
was being restored in inner-city communities, and their political confidence was on
the rise. There had been motive, it now seemed to her, behind the manufactured
ignorance of the dispossessed.1018 The “Venezuelan people stood up,” political
theorist George Ciccariello-Maher observes, “and it is difficult if not impossible
to tell a people on their feet to get back down on their knees.”1019
243
The residents of La Vega, Petare, San Agustín, and 23 de Enero, among the
other poor urban barrios of Caracas, entered an extended period of public com-
miseration, of shared mourning, on March 5, 2013, when Vice President Nicolás
Maduro announced on television that Hugo Chávez had passed away at the age of
fifty-eight, after fourteen years as president, the last two years of which he struggled
with cancer.1020 Identification with this improbable president ran in the veins of
the popular classes of contemporary Venezuela.
Elected in late December 1998, Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency of
Venezuela in February 1999, and was succeeded by the chavista loyalist Nicolás
Maduro, Chávez’s former vice-president. Given that Venezuela is Canada’s second
largest export market in South America, and that Canada’s foreign investment stock
in the country amounted to between C$800 million and C$1 billion between
2007 and 2012, the direct interests of Canadian capital in taming the radicalism
of Chávez’s government were not insignificant. One of the embassy’s goals, as
it explained in a Country Strategy report, is to “defend and promote Canadian
business interests,” 1021 a task whose importance was undoubtedly shaped by the
Chávez’s government’s selective apprehension towards the influence of foreign
capital in Venezuela, and its often publicly hostile stance towards imperialist power.
Perhaps searching for a silver lining in the grey cloud of chavismo, the embassy
suggested to Ottawa as late as 2006 that, “the good news for Canadian investors
and exporters is that Venezuela remains highly dependent on foreign capital and
technology, especially in extractive industries.” In reality, however, it has been much
more difficult for a number of Canadian companies, which have experienced the
Chávez administrations as a period of uncertainty and frustration.1022 Venezuelan
dependency did not play out under Chávez as Canada would have preferred.
This chapter begins by mapping Canadian investment interests in the country,
as well as its wider geo-strategic concerns over the possibility that the Venezuelan
example of confronting neoliberalism under Chávez might spread to other parts
of Latin America. From here it shifts to an analysis of the reality of Chávez’s legacy
domestically compared to the demonization he faced in rhetoric of the state manag-
ers of the most powerful states in the world system and much of the international
mainstream media. Next the chapter examines critically the oft-repeated claims that
Chávez was responsible for a Venezuelan turn toward authoritarianism, clientelism,
and institutional decay. On this historical basis, the chapter proceeds next to dis-
sect Canada’s role in drumming up the image of Chávez as dictator. Flowing from
this assessment of the Canadian diplomatic record vis-à-vis Chávez, a following
section explores the precise role of Canadian mainstream media in the defamation
of the Venezuelan government. Finally, the chapter provides an interrogation of
Canada’s foreign policy in Venezuela since the death of Chávez.
Venezuela’s Threat Of A Good Example 245
Canadian Capital in Venezuela

Three Canadian companies launched lawsuits against the Chávez government
under the Canada-Venezuela Foreign Investment Protection Agreement (fipa).
Two of these lawsuits are related to the lucrative Las Cristinas property, Venezuela’s
largest gold deposit. Canadian company Placer Dome (subsequently acquired by
Barrick Gold) co-owned Las Cristinas with a Venezuelan government company.
When Placer sold its share to Vannessa Ventures—which subsequently changed
its name to Infinito Gold and attempted to sue Costa Rica over the Las Crucitas
mine—Venezuela terminated the company’s ownership in 2001 arguing that the
sale was illegal. Vannessa Ventures responded by suing for over C$1 billion, though
the case was dismissed in 2013 when the International Centre for the Settlement
of Investment Disputes found that Venezuela did not violate the fipa despite
Canada’s intervention on behalf of the Canadian company.1023 After taking Las
Cristinas from Vannessa Ventures, Venezuela transferred it to another Canadian
company, Crystallex International, launching a new saga. Crystallex’s investment in
Venezuela was fraught with uncertainty for a decade. Approval of its environmental
impact study from the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources took
roughly three-and-a-half years, and even after this period, the company still faced
roadblocks from the government in its efforts to proceed.
Meanwhile, the initial start date of 2008 the company had projected for com-
mencing production came and went. Then in November of that year, the Venezuelan
government announced it was planning to nationalize Las Cristinas, as it sought to
increase its gold reserves in the wake of the global crisis and the rising price of gold
on the world market. Though the planned nationalization never took place, three
years of ambiguity dragged on as Crystallex’s hopes of developing the Las Cristinas
money pit were stuck in a state of limbo. The death knell was finally sounded in
early 2011, and all prospects for the Crystallex development permanently thwarted,
when the Venezuelan government terminated the company’s rights to the mine.
Crystallex initiated a lawsuit under the fipa in 2011 for C$3.8 billion. Facing debts
it could not repay, the company was forced to file for bankruptcy, and was delisted
from the Toronto Stock Exchange. In 2012, Venezuela commenced a partnership
with a Chinese state investment company to develop Las Cristinas.1024
The Crystallex experience proved to be more representative of the overarching
investment climate than the Canadians had initially hoped. In 2009, to point to
another example, Gold Reserve Inc. had its Las Brisas project terminated by the
government after receiving a permit from the Ministry of Environment and Natural
Resources in 2007. It responded by suing Venezuela for C$2 billion in damages.1025
Similarly, PetroCanada exited the country in 2007 due to the uncertainty in the
oil sector.
Canadian frustrations with Chávez’s challenge to neoliberal imperialism were

not restricted to the domestic Venezuelan sphere, and the fate of specific Canadian
investments therein. Canadian political leaders and Foreign Affairs officials have
been more concerned about the broader regional implications of Chavismo
for Canadian interests—regional implications understood both in terms of the
example “twenty-first century socialism” in Venezuela might represent beyond
its borders, and in terms of Chávez’s efforts to actively influence developments in
the regional political economy in a manner designed to privilege Latin American
autonomy over relations with North American powers. Canada’s engagement with
Venezuela has been driven by these decisive geopolitical concerns. The mandate
letter to the Ambassador to Venezuela, Perry Calwood, on his appointment in
2007, from the Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs and International Trade was
clear: “Canada’s presence in Venezuela is increasingly important to our broader
strategic interests.” 1026
Country Strategy reports were obviously keenly aware of Chávez’s place within
the emergent sphere of left-of-centre Latin American governments, noting, for
example, that “Venezuela is an increasingly important regional player, working
closely with Cuba as well as newly elected leaders such as Bolivian President
Morales, Ecuadorian President Correa and Nicaraguan President Ortega.”1027 But
his potential influence extended beyond these allies, and included Venezuela’s out-
reach to “the Caribbean region, providing subsidized fuel oil to Carribbean states
under the Petrocaribe initiative.”1028 Petrocaribe was born as an oil agreement in
2005 between a series of Caribbean states and Venezuela. According to the terms
of the agreement, Caribbean states were able to acquire access to Venezuelan oil
on preferential terms, unavailable on the open market.
In 2013, Petrocaribe solidified links with the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples
of our America (alba) to promote further economic ties that went beyond
merely oil transactions. The use of subsidized oil to foster relations in the region
would be a regular thematic focus of fait assessments of Chávez, sparking fait’s
Inter-American Relations Division to reflect on Canada’s potential to contain
Venezuela’s regional influence through subsidized oil with its own dominance in
natural resources: “as an emerging energy power internationally [redacted] Canada
is a serious and credible partner that can offer a different model, one in which
democratic governance is efficient, transparent and accountable.”1029 The reality
Canadian policymakers and capital had to face, though, was, as the Caracas embassy
acknowledged, “Chavez [sic] increasing popularity amongst the region’s masses.”1030
Haiti was one country fait identified to which Chávez’s influence could poten-
tially extend, and in which Canada has been playing a leading role in reinforcing
imperialist power. Ottawa and the embassies in Port-au-Prince and Caracas, for
example, watched closely as Chávez’s efforts to build stronger ties to Haitian
President René Préval developed during a March 2007 visit to the Caribbean
nation. In particular, the Canadians expressed concern about a US$20 million
Venezuelan and Cuban funding agreement for the health and energy sectors (not
a significant amount of money relative to Canadian aid). “If successfully carried
out,” according to the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince, it “will likely have
highly visible results” and strengthen Venezuelan and Cuban credibility in the
impoverished nation where Canadian aid has focused more heavily on the highly
problematic security sector.1031
Canadian political leaders and policymakers were also alert to the possible
influence of Chávez in Central America, in the context of the election of Centre or
Centre-Left governments in Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, and
the growth of social movements targeting Canadian companies. Fear of Chávez in
particular, and a renewed Central American Left in general, were often conflated—
with Chávez identified as responsible, through his “meddling”—for the growing
popular discontent with neoliberalism and unchecked and unaccountable natural
resource extraction. As noted in the chapter on Honduras, Conservative member
of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development,
Dave Van Kesteren, blamed the 2009 Honduran military coup on Manuel Zelaya
and his supposed move into the sphere of influence of Chávez, arguing that
a real power struggle is taking place, and it’s what we believe in as a free
society; that’s to have freedom of goods, what we call the unguided [sic]
hand, as opposed to total government control or freedom versus totali-
tarianism, prosperity versus poverty.1032
Prior to Van Kesteren’s Cold Warrior performance, a 2007 report by The Privy
Council Office’s Intelligence Assessment Secretariat (prepared at the request of
fait) on the influence of Venezuela in Central America (released with heavy redac-
tions) observed that “Chávez’s commitment to export his revolution…has run up
against pragmatic governments.…Nevertheless,” it cautions, “Chávez is unlikely to
be deterred by these initial setbacks, and will continue to meddle in ca [Central
America’s] domestic affairs”—Canada of course never “meddles.” The report goes
on to worry about the fact that polls continue to indicate that Chávez’s “popular
appeal in the region exists.” It concludes that “Chávez failure”—that is, the defeat
of Central America’s Left, still recovering as it is from the brutality of the dirty
wars of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s—“is a positive sign for Canadian interests in
assisting in the development of good government, and in negotiating a free trade
agreement, with the region.”1033 The Honduran coup in 2009 proved to be the
biggest defeat for the Left in this period, and offered Canada the best opportunity
for a free trade agreement in the region. The small matter of over three hundred
targeted assassinations of dissidents and poor farmers was deemed insufficiently

important to force any rethinking by Canadian officials of their relations with the
Lobo government.
Who Was Chávez?

On live television, Venezuelan Vice-President Nicolás Maduro choked on his words.
Hugo Chávez, the improbable President, born in the rural poverty of Sabaneta, in
the state of Barinas in 1954, had died of cancer. To his wealthy and light-skinned
enemies he was evil incarnate. To many impoverished Venezuelans, his contra-
dictory and eclectic ideology—a labyrinthine blend drawing on the thought of
nineteenth century Simón Bolívar and Ezequiel Zamora, twentieth century left-
military nationalism and anti-imperialism, Soviet-inflected, bureaucratic Cuban
socialism, social Christianity, pragmatic neostructuralist economics, and currents
of socialism-from-below—made a good deal of sense at least insofar as he had come
from origins like theirs and had made the right sort of enemies.
There’s something about Chávez that encourages a starker-than-usual embrace of
mediocrity in the quarters of the establishment press. How else to explain the appeal
of Rory Carroll whose dystopic fantasies about the life and times of Venezuela since
1999 found their unmitigated expression in the pages of the Guardian, New York
Times, and New Statesman, among others, in the weeks following Chávez’s death.1034
For Carroll, the Venezuelan popular classes had been the mute and manipulable
playthings of the “elected autocrat,” whose life in turn was reducible to one part
clown, one part monster.1035
If we once imagined that Chávez emerged out of the debauched embrace
of neoliberalism by an old rotating political elite ensconced in the traditional
Democratic Action (Acción Democrática, ad) and Independent Political Electoral
Organization Committee (Comité Organización Politica Electoral Independiente,
copei) parties in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the concomitant socio-political
fissures created by the popular explosion of anti-neoliberal sentiment during the
caracazo riots of 1989, and the folkloric rise of a dissident military man to the status
of popular hero though a failed coup attempt of 1992 (targeting the status quo),
we now stand corrected.1036 The idea that Chávez is the result of Chavismo—a
pervasive groundswell of demands for social change, national liberation, and
deeper democracy—becomes a fraud. “We Created Chávez!”—a popular delu-
sion.1037 “His dramatic sense of his own significance,” we learn from Carroll, is
rather what “helped bring him to power as the reincarnation of the liberator Simón
Bolívar”—the trope of autocratic caudillo, and crocodile charisma. It was this very
same “dramatic flair” that “deeply divided Venezuelans” rather than, say, the uneven
and combined development of neoliberal capitalism in a dependent country of the
Global South—the trope of manufactured polarization. “He spent extravagantly on

health clinics, schools, subsidies and giveaways”—the trope of populist clientelism
and the undeserving poor. “His elections were not fair”—the trope of creeping
authoritarianism. He “dominate[d] airwaves”—the trope of media monopoliza-
tion. Ultimately, though, his evil was banal, his rule was that, “in the final analysis,”
of “an awful manager.”1038 “As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history,” U.S.
President Barack Obama said in response to the death of Chávez, “the United
States remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule
of law, and respect for human rights,” all implicitly absent in the South American
country.1039 “At this key juncture,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper noted
in the same register, “I hope the people of Venezuela can now build for themselves
a better, brighter future based on the principles of freedom, democracy, the rule of
law and respect for human rights.”1040
Although disingenuous in the extreme, this was still more measured than
Harper’s comments in 2009, just prior to a Summit of the Americas meeting. There
he noted that Chávez was representative of certain leftist leaders in the Western
hemisphere who were “opposed to basically sound economic policies, want to
go back to Cold War socialism…want to turn back the clock on the democratic
progress that’s been made in the hemisphere.…There’s nothing out here that says
that running an authoritarian state on petro dollars is not going to get you very
far in the long term.”1041 We are to understand from this that contemporary liberal
democracy is the selection of good managers. A proper manager for the twenty-
first century is presumably something closer to the pliant figure of unelected free
market Italian technocrat Mario Monti, whose loss in the recent Italian elections was
mourned by the same media outlets demonizing Chávez. The Economist spoke of
the stubborn Italian electorate’s “refusal to recognise the underlying causes of Italy’s
plight” achieving its full expression in “their refusal to back Mr Monti.”1042 The tidal
wave of anti-Chávez vitriol on behalf of the world’s rulers is rooted in the refusal
he represents for the poor and dispossessed, for the exploited and oppressed—a
refusal to go on as before, to submit to neoliberal capitalism, and to get on one’s
knees before imperialism. It is true, in other words, that he made an awful manager.
On March 7, 2013, the conservative opposition media in Venezuela reported
hundreds of thousands in the streets of Caracas mourning their manager’s demise.
An editorial in the Mexican daily La Jornada speaks of millions. A quick search of
Google images and Youtube produces a veritable red tide of mourners. Through
Carroll’s prism these multitudes must radically misunderstand the legacy of four-
teen years of Chávez: “the decay, dysfunction and blight that afflict the economy
and every state institution.”1043 They must misconceive the “profound uncertainty”
the late president has thrust them into. They must be blind to the “bureaucratic
malaise and corruption” surrounding them.1044
Charges of Autocracy, Clientelism, and Decay

Mark Weisbrot, a social-democratic economist based in the United States, once
complained that Venezuela “is probably the most lied-about country in the
world.”1045 In fourteen years Chávez won fourteen national electoral contests of
different varieties, coming out securely on top of thirteen of them. According to
Jimmy Carter—former U.S. President, Nobel Prize winner, and monitor of ninety-
two elections worldwide in his capacity as director of the Carter Centre—these
Venezuelan contests were the “best in the world.”1046 In the 2006 presidential race, it
was opposition candidate Manuel Rosales who engaged in petty bids of clientelism
aimed at securing the votes of the poor. Most notoriously, he offered US$450 per
month to 3 million impoverished Venezuelans on personal black credit cards as
part of a plan called Mi Negra. In what his right-wing critics could only understand
as a rare act of agency, the ungrateful would-be recipients apparently aligned them-
selves on the other side of history, backing Chávez with 62 percent of the vote.1047
The “suppressed media” mantra is another favourite go-to card of the opposi-
tion. In one representative report, the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists
claimed that the heavy hand of the Chávez government wielded control over a
“media empire.”1048 In actual fact, Venezuelan state TV reaches
only about 5–8% of the country’s audience. Of course, Chávez can inter-
rupt normal programming with his speeches (under a law that predates his
administration), and regularly does so. But the opposition still has most
of the media, including radio and print media—not to mention most of
the wealth and income of the country.1049
Walking the downtown streets of the capital in the lead up to the presidential
elections of October 2012, with billboards of right-wing candidate Henrique
Capriles Radonski hanging from the lampposts, and Kiosks overflowing with
newspapers beaming headlines on the latest disaster induced by the Chávez regime,
even the most spiritual of journalists would strain in vain to find a ghost of Stalin
in Caracas.1050
At its root, explaining support for Chávez among the lower orders involves
neither the complexity of quantum mechanics nor the pop-psychological theory of
masses entranced by a charismatic leader. Venezuela sits on oil. Other petro-states,
such as those in the Gulf, have funnelled the rent into a grotesque pageantry of the
rich—skyscrapers, theme parks, and artificial archipelagos—built on the backs of
indentured South Asian migrant laborers. They’ve done so, moreover, while aligning
geopolitically with the U.S. Empire—backing the wars, and containing the Arab
uprisings. Much to the bizarre dismay of journalists like Ian James, the Venezuelan
state in the last fourteen years has been forced into different priorities.1051 After
recovering from the steep collapse in gross domestic product (gdp) in 2002 and
2003—hitting -8.9 and -7.8 percent respectively as a consequence of political
crisis spurred by an unsuccessful coup attempt and business-led oil lockout—gdp
soared on high petroleum prices to 18.3, 10.3, 9.9, and 8.2 percent in the years
2004–2007. There was a drop to 4.8 percent in 2008 as the international oil price
took a fourth-quarter plunge from US$118 to $58 a barrel due to centrifigual waves
of the global crisis spreading out from its American and Eurozone epicentres.
Within six months, however, world oil prices had largely recovered, and counter-
cyclical spending brought the Venezuelan economy up to 4.2 percent growth in
2011 and 5.6 in 2012.1052
After the relative modesty of state policy between 1999 and 2002, the extra-
legal whip of the Right lit a fire of self-organization in the poor urban barrios of
Caracas and elsewhere. The empty shell of Chávez’s electoral coalition in the early
years began to be filled out and driven forward in dialectical relation to the spike in
organizational capacity from below in the years immediately following 2003. New
forms of popular assembly, rank-and-file efforts in the labour movement, experi-
ments in workers’ control, communal councils, and communes increasingly gave
Venezuelan democracy life and body for the first time in decades, perhaps ever.
The dispossessed were solidly aligned with Chávez in opposition to the domestic
escualidos (the squalid ones who supported the coup), and ranged against the multi-
faceted machinations of U.S. intervention and the pressures of international capital;
but they were also rapidly transcending the timid confines of government policy.
From above, more state resources consequently began to flow, feeding an
expanding array of parallel health and education systems for the poor.1053 According
to official national statistics, the cash income poverty level fell 37.6 percent under
Chávez, from 42.8 percent of households in 1999 to 26.7 percent in 2012. Extreme
poverty dropped 57.8 percent, from 16.6 to 7 percent between 1999 and 2011.1054
If these income poverty measures are expanded to include welfare improvements
from the doubling in college enrollment since 2004, new access to health care
for millions, and extensive housing subsidies for the poor, it is easy to see how
Carroll’s narrative of decay breaks down. All of this background provides a rea-
soned explanation for the red tide of mourners – they are not so easily written off
as delusional dimwits.
Canada and the Authoritarian Drumbeat

Together with the U.S., Canada attempted to reinforce the idea that Chávez was a
thuggish authoritarian holding power through a mix of populist appeal, intimida-
tion, and repression. The putative authoritarian character of the Chávez government
informed the perspective of Canada’s Caracas embassy on the Venezuelan political
terrain. The mandate given to the Canadian ambassador by the Deputy Ministers
in fait was framed by a sharply critical view of Chávez, and the strategic vision of
the embassy was directed toward supporting organizations critical of the govern-
ment. The views of Ottawa and the embassy—the former providing a political
mandate, the latter, in response to that mandate, providing regular on-the-ground
critical reports—were self-reinforcing; in blissful contradiction with all available
evidence, both declared Chávez a repressive authoritarian with regional ambi-
tions. The embassy’s 2008–09 Country Strategy report, for example, describes
the “Bolivarian Revolution led by President Hugo Chavez [sic]” as “an attempt to
convert Venezuela to an authoritarian socialist state” where “government spending
will continue to be defined by lower-class concerns.”1055
The implication here is, first, that focusing on “lower-class concerns” is in and
of itself a negative development. Lower-class concerns, in the eyes of the Canadian
embassy, are contradictory to the needs of Canadian capital, and a government that
takes them seriously will inevitably produce unsound economics, based on state
intervention and the redistribution of wealth. Secondly, and still more absurdly,
the mere act of focusing on “lower-class concerns” is bound up with a proclivity
towards authoritarianism. In this fantastical worldview, where common sense
meanings are turned on their head, any limits placed on the power and privilege of
the wealthy (including foreign investors) are, by their very nature, anti-democratic.
Nonetheless, it is true that under the Liberals, and during the first year of the Harper
government, the embassy and Ottawa consciously contrasted their engagement
with Venezuela from that of the more publicly acerbic U.S. strategy, which rapidly
descended into verbal conflagration. In this period the Country Strategy reports
point to the desire to “maintain open channels of communication,” while still being
critical. This was a calculated early strategy on Canada’s part, to fly below the radar
as much as possible, so as to avoid the opprobrium of the Venezuelan government
and the bulk of Latin American peoples incurred by the more aggressive posture
adopted by the U.S. from the outset of the Chávez administration.
However, there was never any genuine effort to establish dialogue with Chávez.
Instead, Canada honed in on officials it thought might be softer targets, and used
the limited number of meetings it organized with these officials over this period as
an opportunity to criticize the Venezuelan government. The idea, presumably, was
to test the commitment of select Venezuelan officials to the more radical tenets of
the Bolivarian process. During Kent’s January 2010 trip to Venezuela, for instance,
establishing a personal relationship with future President Nicolás Maduro was
cited as one of the goals of the diplomatic mission.1056 The Harper government,
however, was ultimately true to form in its discomfort with the soft-power approach
to the Venezuela file. Harper saw Chávez as a dangerous threat necessitating more
forceful methods of containment and soon became more publicly hostile toward
the Venezuelan regime, earning public rebukes from Chávez, and a reputation for
being meddlesome and impudent. In a clear reference to Venezuela, Harper himself
declared in a 2008 speech, “while many nations are pursuing market reform and
democratic development, others are falling back to economic nationalism and
protectionism, to political populism and authoritarianism.”1057 Curbs on the free
market and the rights of capital are again conflated with authoritarianism.
Peter Kent, Minister of State for the Americas who laid part of the blame for the
Honduran military coup on deposed President Manuel Zelaya, played an active
role in calling out the Chávez government as authoritarian. In January 2010, in
the context of criticizing the suspension of broadcasting by six television stations,
Kent was quick to denounce the “shrinking of democratic space in Venezuela”
and the “violations of the right to freedom of expression and other basic liberties,”
despite the fact that Venezuela continues to be dominated by private, anti-Chávez
media, and freedom of speech was clearly never endangered in the country under
Chávez’s rule.1058 The six national cable television stations in question were only
temporarily closed, as a result of various failures of the stations to comply with the
country’s Law on Social Responsibility in Radio and Television. The law sets out
acceptable parameters and standards for child and adult programming, prohibits
racist and sexist materials, as well as incitements to violence, limits commercial
advertising, and obliges stations to broadcast government announcements deemed
to be of central importance. Most cable stations remain outside the ambit of this
law, but for those cable stations with 70 percent domestic content and operations,
the law is applicable.1059
Chávez responded to the provocation from the Canadian government by
criticizing the Conservatives for proroguing (that is, completely shutting down)
parliament in Ottawa. In March, 2010, Kent would again target “the shrinking of
democratic space in Venezuela,” and suggest that “the judiciary is being used to
harass those who criticize the government,” following the arrest of Oswald Álvarez
Paz, former state governor in Zulia in March, 2010.1060 Álvarez Paz was convicted
and sentenced to two years of house arrest for “spreading false information” after
claiming on television that Venezuela had “become a safe haven for drug trafficking
and terrorism” and “subversive and terrorist groups [from] around the world,” with
obvious implicit reference to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (farc)
and the Basque Homeland and Freedom, or Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) during
a time of tense relations between Venezuela and the Spanish and Colombian states.
Álvarez Paz was found guilty of violating Article 296-A of Venezuela’s Penal Code,
which prohibits “any individual, by way of print, radio, television, electronic mail, or
written leaflets, from using false information to cause panic or a sustained anxiety
in the general collective.”1061 During a January 2010 visit to Venezuela, Kent met
with “representatives of civil society.”1062 The names of those with whom he met,
however, have not been disclosed by the Canadian government. A Senior Special
Assistant to Kent reported that fait will not disclose the groups or individuals with
whom Kent met in order to protect their safety. “Unlike in Colombia where rights
are protected,” he said—ignoring that country’s ignominious murder rate of trade
unionists, which is the worst in the world, among other things—in Venezuela they
are not.1063 And while the danger to the unnamed individuals is grossly overstated,
it is nonetheless indicative that Kent was meeting with opposition forces. We will
return to Canada’s relations with opposition groups in greater detail below.
Even the electoral basis of Chávez’s government—a key ingredient of the narrow
standards of any liberal democracy—was insufficient to soften Canada’s repeated
assertion that Venezuela was in the grips of authoritarianism. When Chávez was
re-elected for the fourth time in the fall of 2012—by a significant margin over
united opposition candidate Henrique Capriles—it was not interpreted as a sign
of Chávez’s sustained commitment to democracy, or his enduring popularity
among the Venezuelan public. None of the standard diplomatic gestures of con-
gratulations were extended to Chávez as the recently re-elected head of state by
the Harper government.
This reproach stands in stark contrast to Ottawa’s official relations with new
Presidents of a different political hue throughout the region. Canada congratu-
lated Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo on his election in Honduras in November 2009, for
example, and extolled the return to democratic normalcy in the country, despite
the increase of political murder that occurred immediately upon his assumption of
the presidency; Otto Pérez Molina was likewise congratulated on his election vic-
tory in Guatemala, despite his high-ranking military position during the genocidal
campaigns against Mayan peoples carried out at the height of his country’s civil
war in the 1980s, or the increase in political repression that followed his election;
and Álvaro Uribe and Juan Manuel Santos were congratulated for their respective
presidential wins in Colombia, despite the systematic violation of the rights of
social movement activists, individuals associated with the political Left, and trade
unions in that country under their rule.
In other words, Canadian officials routinely congratulated state representatives
with incomparably worse human rights records than Chávez, while the latter was
shunned and shamed by Harper in front of the “international community” on a
regular basis. Canada could not entirely ignore the fact of clean elections in 2012
in Venezuela, and thus an official felt obliged to note that the election, “demon-
strates the commitment of the Venezuelan people to democracy.”1064 Somehow,
though, Chávez’s name was conspicuously absent from that praise. Tellingly, when
union activists are the target of bloody violence in Venezuela, such as the seven
who were murdered in the state of Aragua between 2008 and 2010 by what the
National Union of Workers (Unete) describe as hired killers working for a private
multinational, Canada remained silent.1065 Right-wing violence is not cause for

concern, nor seen as a source of instability.
In truth, the branding of Chávez as an authoritarian demagogue speaks more
about the Canadian government than it does about Chávez himself. For Chávez’s
Venezuela, as we have demonstrated, was clearly a democratic society, indeed
more democratic than Canada’s narrowly liberal democracy, both on paper and
in practice. Nonetheless, for the Harper government and fait, limits on the free
market, criticism of imperialism and neoliberalism, and the push against the narrow
parameters of liberalism (however uneven in the Venezuelan case) are, by defini-
tion, a clear indication of authoritarianism. This is clearly the logic animating Van
Kesteren’s Cold War call to arms against Chávez’s purported influence in Central
America, the comments from Harper conflating market reform and democracy,
and fait sensibilities about Venezuela expressed in its various reports and com-
muniqués between Ottawa and the Caracas embassy. Foreign investor rights,
strong free markets, popular input rigidly circumscribed in elections every four
years—this is what democracy is for imperialist Canada. Breaking from these
narrow strictures—even if in the direction of greater popular participation in the
political process, or rebalancing the rights of communities vis-à-vis foreign capi-
tal—therefore constitutes a rupture with democracy.
When you strip away Canada’s linguistic claims to selfless devotion to human
rights, and dig below the rhetorical surface of Canadian foreign policy, what
Canadian leaders and policymakers are really talking about is the threat to the
rights of Canadian capital to invest where it chooses, use the environment as it
pleases, and repatriate its profits without interference from the troublesome locals.
As was mentioned in the chapter on Honduras, this preoccupation with the rights
of Canadian multinationals, dressed up in liberal humanitarian dross, was captured
during the hearings on Honduras in the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs
and International Trade’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights. In those
proceedings, Conservative member Gary Schellenberger, together with a Gildan
executive, argued that a free trade agreement would benefit Honduras because it
would bring the rule of law to the country.1066 Such a statement is patently false if,
by rule of law, one means equality before the law for all Hondurans—the ostensible
premise of the rule of law under liberal democracy. In reality, what the fta will do,
what constitutes in fact its central purpose, is to establish the juridical foundations
for Canadian capital’s freedom to invest and repatriate profits in a context where the
rules for doing business, in the buzzwords of fait negotiators, are transparent and
predictable. Canada’s preoccupations with Chávez are no different in motivation,
except that in the case of Venezuela, Chávez’s perceived regional influence posed
a significant threat to Canadian capital.
Canadian Media and Venezuela

While this book is not a study of mainstream media, the latter can and does play an
important role in Canada in forging a popular perception of Canadian foreign policy
as largely selfless and humanitarian. Occasional criticisms of particular incidents or
aspects of Canadian foreign policy can be found in the media, but these are rarely
integrated into investigations of the systematic driving forces underlying that policy,
or the broader ambitions being pursued. As a result, particularly bad incidents that
require media attention can be presented merely as mistakes or unrepresentative
anomalies, rather than as natural expressions of the core priorities underpinning
the Canadian state’s policy agenda abroad. Coverage of Venezuela under Chávez is
perhaps one of the best examples of the obsequiousness of the mainstream media
in Canada in this regard. With rare and partial exceptions, the Canadian media
faithfully conformed to and uncritically regurgitated the official line on the Chávez
government delivered to them by the Canadian and U.S. governments.
Canada’s national paper of record, the Globe and Mail, was in the vanguard of this
servility masquerading as serious reporting. The Globe’s subservience to the cause of
imperialism reached something of a fever pitch when Chávez died, with full cover-
age sparing no unsubstantiated accusation: one article accused him of using “brute
force” to maintain power, and of being a “polarizing dictator.” It also celebrated his
opponent in the last election, noting that Henrique Capriles “galvanized Mr. Chávez’s
opponents like never before and led the party to an impressive 44-percent-finish”—
apparently unaware of the fact that this observation implies, first, that the “dictator”
actually won the presidency through election and, second, he did so in his fourth
consecutive victory with 56 percent of the vote. That a Canadian party has only
received more than 56 percent of the popular once—the Conservatives in 1917—or
that Stephen Harper won the 2011 election with 39 percent of the popular vote but
has total control over the federal political process is, of course, unmentionable as it
undermines the official narrative of a Venezuelan president run amok.1067
The Globe also offered insight on the physical presence and pyschic make up
of Chávez, describing him as, “physically imposing as he pointed his finger and
gesticulated. You could sense a ruthlessness right below the surface.”1068 At 5ft, 8in
in height, Chávez was hardly Goliath, but because of his Afro-Venezuelan heritage
his physical features were a perennial target of derisive commentary by the racist
opposition in Venezuela and abroad. The Globe acknowledged, his followers were
“devoted,” if also simple and easily-manipulated. Chávez reportedly, “played on
their insecurities and fed their nationalist passions.” Venezuelans were said to be
suffering for their indiscretion, facing economic instability and the rise in violent
crime during his tenure, in which “Caracas became one of the most dangerous
places to live in Latin America.” 1069
Of course, the economic stagnation for the poor majority and the bloody
repression in Honduras under the post-coup government is not subject to any
similar reflections from Canada’s mainstream media, and the Globe conveniently
ignores the fact that Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo’s Honduras had the worst murder rate
in the world. Lobo was an ally, and thus, officially, a responsible president bringing
democracy and stability to Hondurans. The Globe predictably endorsed his 2009
election despite it taking place in a state of siege with no candidate participating
from the anti-coup movement—conditions without question far worse than
anything experienced under Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.
Another posthumous reflection in the Globe repeats the idea that Venezuelans
must have been duped into supporting Chávez, describing the “almost messianic
hold” he had on his supporters. And if it begrudgingly acknowledges that he may
have improved social indicators, it quotes professor of Latin American politics Max
Cameron, who argues that “He eroded the quality of democracy in a country with a
long history of democracy”1070—a remarkable assertion given the shallow character
of Venezuela’s formal democracy prior to Chávez’s assumption to power, and the
well-documented social and participatory deepening of democracy in the country
under Chávez. The one Globe article that eschews the Chávez-as-authoritarian line
nevertheless misleadingly, and against the easily obtainable facts to the contrary,
claims that Chávez’s limits on the free market have left the economy in ruins and
the poor ultimately more vulnerable going forward.1071 The Globe’s “Report on
Business” section also offered its reflections after the death, seeing an opportunity
for Canadian capital, noting excitedly that “the death of Hugo Chavez (sic) offers
the promise of domestic oil market changes that could roil the energy world and
place substantial opportunities at the feet of Canadian oil companies.”1072
The Toronto Star, the largest daily circulation newspaper in the country and
a traditional supporter of the Liberal Party, also contributed to the systematic
misinformation on the Chávez government—in fact, the Star was censured by the
Ontario Press Council after a formal complaint for a series of inaccurate articles in
2006 by Tim Harper on the rise of violent crime and poverty as a result of Chávez,
which relied exclusively on government opponents for sources.1073 Following
Chávez’s death, the Star included opinion pieces contradicting the imperialist
line about Chávez’s authoritarianism, but also ran an article by Oakland Ross that
compared Chávez to Kim Jong Il, Francois Papa Doc Duvalier, and Rafael Trujillo.
Chávez was “not in that class,” he notes, but he was nevertheless—so we have no
illusions about him—“authoritarian, bombastic, and a lousy manager to boot.”1074
Canada’s Engagement with Post-Chávez Venezuela

Following the death of Chávez in March 2013, Canada, like the U.S., saw an oppor-
tunity to roll back the social gains of the Bolivarian revolution. In fact, two weeks
before Chávez died Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, anticipating Chávez’s
imminent demise, had made plans to meet with then-Vice President Nicolás
Maduro, only to have the trip cancelled when Chávez returned unexpectedly from
an extended convalescence in Cuba.
Whereas the Canadian government was quick to support Porifirio Lobo’s
election in Honduras despite it taking place in the context of a military coup, a
boycott by the anti-coup opposition, and widespread accusations of vote rigging,
the Canadian government was publicly critical of Maduro’s narrow (1.8 percent)
election victory over united opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, suggesting
the legitimacy of the outcome was in question. Canada called for an audit of the
vote to ensure democratic fairness, with Ablonczy asserting that “due process
must take place in order for that to be achieved.”1075 Canada and the U.S. were the
only countries of the Americas that challenged the legitimacy of the election, in
a strategy designed to lend credibility to Capriles, who in turn used international
criticism of the election to foment violent protests from his right-wing base and
to continue calls for a recount.
This demand was described by Mark Weisbrot as “farcical,” given the fact that
Venezuela has one of the most rigourous voting processes in the world, involving
voting done by touch screen, with a receipt printed out to confirm the vote was
recorded properly, which voters then put in a ballot box. When voting is closed
it is followed by an audit of 53 percent of voting machines in front of witnesses
from the different parties to compare their results to the paper results. Weisbrot
suggests the chance of fraud occurring in this electoral system given the audit
showed Maduro’s victory “would be far less than one in 25 thousand trillion.”
Capriles’ claims regarding electoral fraud were a transparent façade for a politi-
cal intervention designed to galvanize domestic and international opposition to
Chavismo. In an indicative gesture, when the Electoral Council acceded to his
initial demand for a full audit of all the paper receipts from the voting machines,
Capriles introduced a new set of demands and said he would now boycott any such
an audit as resolutely insufficient.1076
Conclusion
This chapter has demonstrated the intensity with which Canada’s leading geo-
political strategists have responded to what they see as the threat of Venezuela’s
often successful opposition to neoliberalism under Chávez and Maduro spread-
ing elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean—that is, the threat of a good
example. Canadian capital has been directly involved in confrontations with the
Venezuelan government, as indicated in our discussion of a series of lawsuits in the
mining sector. More important than the protection of direct Canadian investments,
however, has been the wider geopolitical concern on the part of the Canadian state
that Venezuela under Chávez had become a strategic regional player within a wider
turn to the Left in the region.
Containment of this kind of regional power has been a central motivation behind
the campaign of demonization launched by the Canadian state and the Canadian
mainstream media against Chávez and his successor. In this sense, the Canadians
are mirroring a wider proliferation of disinformation and manipulation vis-à-vis
Venezuelan politics in the mainstream international media. Our discussion above
has systematically juxtaposed such claims of Venezuela’s turn to authoritarianism,
clientelism, and institutional decay against the realities of Venezuelan political
economy under Chávez and the opening period of Maduro’s administration.
Above all, this chapter has demonstrated that Canadian capital and its supporters
within the apparatus of the Canadian state will endure no deviation from neoliberal
orthodoxy in Latin America if it can in any way, and by whatever means, be avoided.
Chapter 9
An Exercise in Cynicism:
“Democracy” and “Security”
in the Andes
C anadian democracy promotion and security policy offer two very important
modes of intervention in the Andes geared at actively undermining democratic
projects and movements of resistance. Given how under-analyzed these foreign
policy strategies are, especially relative to their importance to Canadian foreign
policy, we offer an extended examination of their dynamics in this chapter. While
formally distinct strategies, in reality they are flip sides of the same interventionist
coin: one funds “civil society” organizations in the nominal spirit of promoting
political dialogue and greater civic engagement in the targeted country; the other
offers back up, should the former fail, by building ties with and financially sup-
porting trusted security apparatuses in the region. The growth of both security
and democracy promotion in the Canadian arsenal of foreign policy tactics in
Latin America clearly correspond to, on the one hand, the expansion of Canadian
capital, and, on the other, the increasing electoral and social movement strength
of the region’s left-wing forces over the last fifteen years. Canadian imperialism is
both a cause of, and response to, movements of resistance: exploitation of Andean
resources engenders resistance, which in turn necessitates political intervention
to undermine that resistance.
260
An Exercise In Cynicism: “democracy” And “security” In The Andes 261
Democracy Promotion
In the 1980s, democracy promotion became a key strategic axis in American for-
eign policy strategy in Latin America, as the U.S. began to slowly shift its support
away from murderous military dictatorships, towards forces seen as better able
to secure stability for international capital. Funding for democracy promotion,
emanating from the National Endowment for Democracy, and channeled through
organizations such as the International Republican Institute and the National
Democratic Institute, offered financial support and training to political parties,
business organizations, human rights groups, and journalists that were sympa-
thetic to neoliberalism. Market liberalization, together with an extremely narrow
conception of democracy—what the sociologist William I. Robinson refers to as
polyarchy—were pursued to support the consolidation of the new world order.1077
It was not until the 2000s that Canada began to actively engage in this form of
democracy promotion, following the expansion of Canadian capital throughout
Latin America from the 1990s onwards, and the growing influence of left-wing
forces there, especially in the Andes.1078 Between 2009 and 2012, Foreign Affairs
spent nearly C$5 million on democracy promotion initiatives in South America
in general, most of it for the Andean region, on top of spending on specific coun-
tries such as Ecuador and Venezuela (not including money spent on Rights and
Democracy, which increasingly focused its attention on Latin America before
the government shut it down).1079 Projects financed by Foreign Affairs include a
report on supposed threats to democracy in the region by the conservative World
Movement for Democracy, political party assistance seminars, training in the use
of new technologies, projects working against efforts to limit foreign financing of
Andean ngos (a concern in Venezuela and Ecuador given the extensive funding of
opposition ngos by the U.S.), and the building of a network for political monitoring
in the Andes. Many of these projects involve direct, coordinated support for opposi-
tional groups in the region, such as the network la Red Latinoamericana y del Caribe
para la Democracia (Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy),
which was created through a 2008 meeting organized by the Canadian embassy in
Panama together with the American National Endowment for Democracy (ned),
for leaders of the opposition from Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Cuba.1080
Most of these Canadian-funded projects are based on the idea that democracy
is under threat in parts of the Andes, by which Foreign Affairs officials and democ-
racy promotion ngos really mean that social movements and/or governments are
challenging the sanctity of the narrowly defined parameters of liberal institutional
politics: democracy is reduced to an election once every several years, and the spec-
trum of debate never should transcend policy prescriptions for enhancing market
liberalization. As one Canadian project proposal remarks, “popular support for
democracy has dropped across the region, largely in response to unrealistic expecta-
tions of what democracy can deliver.” But support for democracy has not dropped
in the Andes; demands for greater popular participation have in fact increased.
What has declined is faith in traditional liberal institutions such as legislatures that
discourage more active political participation, which the project proposal acknowl-
edges when it refers to the “increasingly divisive” debate “between proponents of
direct democracy and representative democracy.” In the face of this reality, this
project calls for “practical programming activities to enhance the involvement of
citizens in the law-making and oversight functions of legislatures”—that is, in those
institutions that growing numbers of people increasingly see as having limited
capacity to reflect their interests.1081 For Canadian democracy promotion policy,
democracy is defined in the narrowest of terms, and anything more inclusive or
participatory is cited as a threat.
In a 2009 speech, Peter Kent captured his government’s priorities in the region
and how democracy and human rights fit into these. High rates of inequality in
Latin America, he observes, “may fuel opposition to the free market and democ-
racy,” so Canada’s response is a “commitment to promoting freedom, democracy,
human rights and the rule of law”—with no mention of economic issues.1082 The
problem, then, is not in fact inequality for Canada’s foreign policy makers. Nor,
therefore, is it possible to imagine that alternatives to neoliberal economics, and
narrowly conceived liberal democracy, might provide solutions to the region’s
longstanding problem of inequality. It is not even conceivable in the minds of
Canada’s political leaders, serving the interests of capital, that any such alternatives
could be democratic.
The problem, instead, is the potential threat to the free market in a narrowly
circumscribed liberal democracy posed by forces challenging inequality. As politi-
cal scientist Neil Burron argues, “Canadian democracy promotion is increasingly
being used as a political device to promote free markets and to criticize govern-
ments that have strayed from the Washington Consensus.”1083 While he was head
of the now defunct government-funded Rights and Democracy, Gérard Latulippe
offered a similar, and somewhat confused, attempt to justify Canada’s focus on Latin
America for democracy promotion: “you can see the emergence of a new model of
democracy, where in fact it’s trying to make an alternative to democracy by saying
people can have a better life even if there’s no democracy.”1084
It is noteworthy that while Canada likes to pontificate about its support for
democracy and human rights in the Americas, it has not even signed the American
Convention on Human Rights, and is therefore not subject to the jurisdiction of
the Commission or Court (the Inter American Commission and Court are the
monitoring bodies of the Convention) beyond their advisory functions. Yet Canada
has been, in recent years, the second largest individual funder of the Commission,
spending US$2.4 million—11 percent of the Commission’s budget financed by

states and international organizations—between 2008 and 2012. The U.S. and
Canada have the most financial influence over one of the Convention’s monitoring
bodies, although neither of them are signatories of the Convention.1085
Venezuela
The biggest target of Canada’s democracy and human rights promotion activities
in the region is Venezuela. It became a common assertion by Foreign Affairs and
International Trade (fait) and the Conservative and Liberal parties, though never
backed up by serious argument, that the Chávez government was an authoritarian
regime. Venezuela has also been identified as a country with a poor democratic
and human rights record by Conservative members of the Standing Committee
on Foreign Affairs and International Development.1086
The mandate letter issued to the Ambassador to Venezuela, Perry Calwood,
on his appointment in 2007 by the Deputy Ministers of fait was clear on what
the embassy’s attention should be focused on: “human rights, democracy and the
rule of law.”1087 This directive is in turn reflected in the Country Strategy reports,
which are written by embassies for Ottawa. The embassy reports from Venezuela
to Ottawa note, for example, that “Venezuelan human rights organizations such as
[redacted] are in a critical financial situation,”1088 and that its objective is to “nurture
all civil society,” though, quite clearly, civil society for the embassy is synonymous
with the opposition to Chávez.1089
During a rare trip to Venezuela by a cabinet minister in January 2010, Peter Kent
met with “representatives of civil society,” business leaders, and politicians.1090 The
names of those with whom he met, however, are not disclosed by the Canadian
government on the grounds that their security would be threatened should their
names be made public. In a speech to the Permanent Council of the Organization of
American States in November 2010—several months after his trip to Venezuela—
Kent spent much of his time highlighting the importance of democracy promotion
to Canadian foreign policy in the Americas; in thinly veiled criticisms of Venezuela,
Kent proclaimed Canada’s commitment to “vigorously defend” human rights and
democratic institutions “in the face of efforts to weaken and discredit” them.1091
Direct contact by Canadian political leaders in Venezuela did not extend beyond
Kent’s visit, given the chilly relationship Canada’s meddling created. As noted above,
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird did plan to visit Venezuela in early 2013 while
Chávez was fighting cancer in Cuba—in a proactive attempt to test the waters of a
soon-to-be post-Chávez Venezuela—but had to abruptly cancel when the president
returned home unexpectedly.
In December 2010, the Venezuelan National Assembly passed a law that pro-
hibits foreign funding of ngos and political parties. The law was a response to the
role of these foreign-funded ngos in efforts to build the anti-Chávez right-wing

and support for the failed 2002 coup against the President. In response to this,
Ottawa directed several Latin American-based Canadian embassies in early 2011
to meet with “like-minded” governments in the region in an effort to mobilize
opposition and publicly censure the Venezuelan government. At this time, the
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs travelled to Venezuela and, along with embassy
officials, held several meetings with Venezuelan ngos, academics, and “grassroots”
organizations to discuss opposition to the law and its potential impact on foreign
support for these organizations.1092 While the opposition presented this to inter-
national observers as a crackdown on dissent, for the Chávez government it was a
defense of Venezuelan sovereignty, given the role that foreign funding has played
in efforts to destabilize the country.1093 The embassy read this move by the Chávez
government as targeted first and foremost at the Americans, and therefore as an
important reason for Canada to step up its own democracy promotion support—to
pick up the American slack.1094
The stepped up attacks on Chávez’s “authoritarian” proclivities translated into
a growing budget for democracy promotion and human rights in Venezuela. This
started under the Liberals, in fact, but intensified after the Harper Conservatives
took power in 2006. cida’s Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (cfli), which is actu-
ally distributed through embassies, has been an important conduit for Canadian
financing of democracy promotion and human rights support in Venezuela. Until
2003–2004, little cfli money went to democracy and human rights. After that,
democracy promotion and human rights becomes a cfli focus, and by 2007–2008
cfli in Venezuela was dedicated to these strategic areas alone. Between 2005 and
2006, cfli spending included support for well-known supporters of the 2002 coup
and active anti-government organizations. The best known of these organizations
was Súmate. In 2005, the Liberal government brought the head of Súmate, Maria
Corina Machado, to Ottawa to speak to members of parliament.
As Anthony Fenton notes, Machado supported the attempted 2002 coup and
was later “charged with conspiracy to commit treason for allegedly using ned funds
to campaign against Chávez in the recall referendum organized by the opposi-
tion.” The chair of the fait-funded (now defunct) right-wing Latin American
policy organization, focal, John Graham, participated in high-level meetings in
Washington with Machado and key U.S. political figures such as Condoleeza Rice
and Roger Noriega in 2005 to discuss “strengthening democracy in the region.”1095
focal itself subsequently received funding from ned for democracy promotion
work in Venezuela and the Andes. Canada also funded coup-supporting Fundacion
Justicia de Pas Monagas.1096 Starting in 2007–2008, cida and the embassy refused
to disclose publicly the organizations they were supporting on the grounds of the
alleged security risk involved in releasing such information. While the security risk
is surely extremely overblown, the rationale implies they are funding opposition
organizations.
In 2007–2008, cfli money for democracy and human rights projects in
Venezuela shot up to over C$227,000, declining the following year to less than
C$100,000 and rising above C$100,000 in 2009–2010 to nearly C$200,000 in
2010–2011 and over C$175,000 in 2011–2012. Over the same periods, non-
democracy promotion and human rights bilateral aid was a significantly smaller
component to Canadian spending, and in fact non-existent in 2011–2012.1097
Of the fait spending that has been publicly disclosed, between 2008 and 2012,
over C$715,000 was earmarked for democracy promotion specifically targeting
Venezuela. This figure would be higher still if it included funding for regional
initiatives that also targeted Venezuela.
In 2010, as part of Canada’s expanding democracy promotion agenda against
Venezuela, the now defunct, federally-funded Rights and Democracy—then
headed by former employee of the National Democratic Institute (the international
democracy promotion wing of the U.S. Democracy Party) Gérard Latulippe—
awarded its John Humphrey prize to Chávez critic provea (El Programa
Venezolano de Educacion-Accion en Derechos Humanos). The award included a
C$30,000 grant.1098 A 2010 report, Assessing Democracy Support in Venezuela, by
Spanish think-tank the fride Institute, which was funded in part by the World
Movement for Democracy—which itself has received hundreds of thousands of
dollars from Canada, and whose steering committee chair at the time was former
Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Kim Campbell—identified Canada as
the third largest supporter of democracy promotion programs in Venezuela after
the U.S. and Spain. The report describes Venezuela as “semi-authoritarian,” and,
in the face of the electoral successes of Chávez, it states that, in fact, “elections are
the main link between democracy and dictatorship,” and calls for more financing
for the opposition.1099 Without irony, in its Country Strategy reports the Caracas
embassy stresses that Venezuela is wracked by political polarization and instabil-
ity, which it uses as part of the justification for democracy promotion spending.
But given that Canada has become a significant spender in this area, trying to
systematically bolster the opposition, such claims about political polarization and
instability become self-fulfilling prophecies: Canada intervenes to embolden the
opposition, which creates polarization, and on that basis Canada justifies interven-
tion to support democracy or human rights. Canadian spending is not a response
to polarization or instability, but part of the cause.
Canada’s democracy promotion human rights position on Venezuela
was reiterated by the government in its response in the fall of 2012 to the
Conservative-dominated Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International
Development’s report on human rights in Venezuela. The committee called on
the government to continue its democracy promotion and human rights work,
including the funding of Venezuelan “human rights defenders.” The government
responded by assuring the committee of its ongoing commitment.1100
Ecuador
As an important destination for Canadian investment in the late 1990s and 2000s,
the site of a significant number of powerful social movements, and the locale for
the election of a left-of-centre president, Ecuador has also drawn the attention of
Canada’s democracy and human rights promotion efforts. Allan Culham, Canada’s
representative to the oas, has flagged Canada’s concern for an ostensible closing
of “democratic space” in Ecuador. Culham was speaking about Ecuador following
what has been referred to by the Correa government as a failed coup attempt on
September 30, 2010.1101 On that day, police officers mounted road blockades in
Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca and, together with a small sector of the armed forces,
seized several barracks and briefly shut down the national airport by occupying the
airstrip. The National Assembly was also occupied. The actions were an expression
of opposition to cuts to public sector funding, including new austerity measures
that hit the police and armed forces alike. After Correa addressed a hostile crowd
of police at one of the seized barracks that morning he was shot at with a tear gas
canister as he attempted to leave the scene with his security guards—he was walk-
ing with a cane at the time due to a recent knee operation.
Although the canister did not hit him, he did suffer from gas inhalation and
was immediately taken to the hospital. Police then surrounded the hospital and
Correa was unable to leave the premises for several hours, ultimately being freed
by loyal soldiers who engaged in a firefight with the protesting police, leading to
several deaths outside the hospital. In hindsight, the loyalty of the bulk of the
armed forces to the constitutionally elected government seems never to have been
seriously in doubt.1102 However, in the immediate context of the events this was
hardly self-evident, and the presidents of numerous Latin American countries, as
well as the Secretary General of the oas, José Miguel Insulza, deemed it necessary
to immediately denounce the actions of the insurrectionary police and a sector of
the armed forces, and to publicly declare their support for the continuity of Correa’s
constitutional government.1103
Canada played down the significance of the police threat. As in Honduras,
Canada refused to single out the police and right-wing opposition as responsible
for the violence and instead suggested that the government and its supporters
were equally responsible. Kent, as Minister of State for the Americas, called “on
all parties to refrain from violence and any other actions that could imperil the
rule of law and the country’s democratic institutions.”1104 This position is repeated
by Allan Culham during a special meeting about the attempted coup at the oas
Permanent Council. While Canada supported a resolution criticizing the threat

to the rule of law, and Culham expressed support for the “elected government,” he
added “I would…like to take this opportunity to remind us all of what I think is an
important element of government that we should not forget, and that is the need
to create democratic spaces which are respectful of dialogue and respectful of all
sectors of society to be sure they have the opportunities to express views.”1105 The
implication Culham was making is that the police rebellion and insubordination
of a sector of the armed forces were a response to the narrowing of democratic
space in Correa’s Ecuador.
In follow-up reports to Ottawa the embassy puts the blame for the conflagra-
tion on Correa, but opportunistically sees an opening to put more pressure on
Correa to perhaps bring him more securely into the imperial fold. For example,
Ambassador Shisko refers in a Situation Report to Ottawa on the attempted coup to
the “vulnerability of Ecuadorian institutions” that “has further been exacerbated,”
not by rebellious police and the Right, but “by a steady concentration of power
at the hands of the president,” and notes the possibility that Correa might exploit
the opportunity of the events of September 30, “to follow Chávez’s example and
radicalize his position with no negotiations, no dialogue and further concentration
of power.”1106 In a follow-up communication Shisko assures Ottawa that “we are
very much looking forward to exploring creative ideas and entry points for Canada
in support of democratic governance in the country.”1107 Shisko’s expression of
imperial opportunism came while discussing the potential danger of Correa’s cen-
tralizing power, and the deepening of his putative leftist political agenda. Shisko’s
“evidence” was the fact that Correa’s party, Alianza Patria Altiva y Soberana, or
simply Alianza País (Proud and Sovereign Homeland Alliance, ap), enjoys a major-
ity in congress, and can therefore pass laws without consulting the opposition.
Several months later, Canada provided C$120,000 to Corporacion Participación
Ciudadana (Citizen Participation Corporation), which, according to Foreign
Affairs, is meant to “empower citizens to more effectively engage in the political
process through civil society capacity-building and strengthening the civil society
network in Ecuador.”1108 Citizen Participation Corporation, identified by Shisko
as “an active critic of certain government practices,”1109 and thus deemed suitable
for Canadian funding, highlights in its proposal the “obvious weakening of civil
society…due to a lack of action by civil society organizations.” The project’s aim
will be to “create space…for the public discussion of issues of prime importance
to the country,” as well as “capacity building in leadership, political watchdogs,
and communication strategies.”1110 Again, the implicit premise for Canadian sup-
port here is a distrust of Correa and the idea that the Ecuadorian Right, and those
sympathetic to Canadian investors, should have a stronger voice, greater oppor-
tunity to be heard, and, ultimately, be more politically effective and have greater
decision-making influence—all themes that are raised in discussions surrounding

the project proposal. It is also worth noting that the Andean Unit for Democratic
Governance, the centrepiece of Canadian democracy promotion in the Andes,
which is headquartered in Peru, has had staff based in Quito since November 2010.
When Canada expresses concern about threats to democracy in Ecuador, what
it fears is not some form of dictatorship or slide toward authoritarianism, for which
there is no evidence, but rather the independent actions of Correa and his gov-
ernment when it seeks to set—rather modest—limits on the power of Canadian
capital. Also seen as an obstacle to democracy in Ecuador are the country’s social
movements, particularly those pushing for more participatory and collective
forms of decision making—often unsupported by Correa himself—on issues
of land and environment, which are in form and substance far more extensive
examples of democracy than the neoliberalism preached by Canada. The desire for
alternatives to the neoliberal free market model promoted by Canada—whether
in the form of Correa’s Left populism, or the more radical push for participatory
and inclusive democracy by some of the more powerful social movements in the
country—could not be ignored by Canadian policymakers. The embassy, writing
to Ottawa, recognized after Correa’s victory that “Ecuadorians support him and…
they wish to see institutional change.”1111 While much of the social movement Left
are less supportive of Correa than when he was first elected, there certainly is a
desire for “institutional change.”
Neither of these alternatives is acceptable to Canada. They represent a push
beyond the bounds of so-called “good governance,” and thus pose ostensible chal-
lenges to democracy; Canadian intervention is therefore required. The free market
and the rights of foreign capital are, in this view, inviolable, and so Ecuador, like
Venezuela, becomes a target of democracy and human rights promotion. Between
2008—a short period into Correa’s first term in power—and 2011, Canada spent
roughly C$1 million on democracy and human rights promotion in Ecuador.
Foreign Affairs provided C$400,000 for a U.S. ned-coordinated project starting
in 2008 for Latin America, including Ecuador. The premise of the project was to
offer organizational, financial, and educational support to civil society organiza-
tions operating in “in countries where civil society faces immediate threats to their
freedom of association, such as in Venezuela or Ecuador.”1112 The sheer absurdity
of this assessment should give the reader pause.
In 2009, fait committed C$336,500 to the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty
Democracy (nimd), even though Ecuador has a multiparty democracy, to “encour-
age dialogue on Ecuador’s constitution” (dialogue which already existed), and
another C$302,000 in 2011 to encourage greater political participation from
youth, “with the objective of strengthening the country’s democratic culture and
institutions.”1113 The 2009 proposal from the nimd justifies support for the project
noting that, “the Latin American political landscape has proven to be a turbulent,
rapidly changing environment in which constant evaluation and reassessment is
necessary,” including of “the emergence of new political parties, leaders and social
movements, especially in the Andean region.”1114
What the Canadian-funded project is stating, in reality, is that the Left has been
ascendant in Ecuador in both the mode of social movements and the form of politi-
cal parties, challenging foreign capital directly and gaining institutional political
power, and in some cases rethinking those institutions and norms—a process that
clearly does not benefit Canadian investors, or Canada’s longer-term geopolitical
strategy in the region. In the process, political organizations and parties of the
Right that held power in the recent past in countries like Ecuador (or Venezuela),
have been weakened or marginalized due to their association with the legacy of
neoliberalism, and have consequently been incapable of shaping contemporary
political debate. Canadian policymakers, in response, criticize this outcome as
an example of a lack of political dialogue, and a decline in democratic practices.
Canada rarely broached such criticism before the re-emergence of the Ecuadorian
or Andean Left in the late 1990s.
Clearly the Canadian strategists supporting these democracy and human rights
promotion projects are not motivated by the concerns of indigenous communi-
ties and environmental activists opposed to Correa’s mining policy, given that
Canada pushed heavily for a more favourable mining regime against the demands
of such groups. The nimd proposal itself identifies explicitly with the experiences
of the “opposition parties,” which were not represented in the elected Constituent
Assembly, and the interests of which were “not being taken into account by the
governmental majority.” Even though the constitution was “approved by the
population with an overwhelming majority,” according to the nimd’s proposal
it reflects a democratic shortcoming, as the “opposition”—that is the right-wing
parties—did not exercise sufficient influence.1115 Ultimately, the meagre support
for right-wing forces in Ecuador is not raised by Canadian supporters of these
projects, who focus on an alleged absence of “open and broad debate”; the power
of the Left—ranging from Correa to the social movements with whom he has
clashed—and weakness of the Right is simply depicted by Canadian officials as a
failure of Ecuadorian democracy.
In addition to the internal inconsistencies in Canada’s logic of democracy
promotion in Ecuador, there is also considerable hypocrisy surrounding Ottawa’s
agenda in this area. Before Correa’s election, the Canadian state was hardly con-
cerned with promoting dialogue or “open and honest debate” between all sides in
Ecuador. There were no demands for more meaningful inclusivity, despite violence
being meted out against opponents of mining by state and private security forces.
It is only when Correa gains control of the country’s electoral institutions that
Canada discerns the need for such a focus. In Correa’s Ecuador, Canadian funds
are targeted to “strengthen the role of citizens as part of the current constitutional
process”—this after the elected Constituent Assembly completed its work with a
considerable degree of popular input, and certainly a great deal more than Canada
could ever claim for its own constitutional process in the 1980s. Canadian money
was also used to issue bulletins explaining the content of the new constitution to
the right-wing national newspaper El Comercio, and the organization of workshops
to create “better informed citizens about their rights and obligations.”1116
The purpose of the youth democracy project led by the nimd was to study
youth electoral participation with the aim to “expand the inclusiveness and rep-
resentativeness of the political system,” even though voter turnout in the election
held previous to this Canadian-supported project was over 75 percent—higher
than the last six Ecuadorian presidential elections, and considerably higher than
the turnout in any recent federal Canadian election.1117 In expressing his support
for the project in an email to Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, Ambassador Shisko notes
that the new constitution permits sixteen-year-olds to vote, even though they are
not “prepared to participate in a responsible way.” He adds that “Ecuador does
currently lack of [sic] political leaders and political parties are not strong in train-
ing new generations.” But democracy programs such as those funded by Canada
“could help address, in the longer term, the weaknesses of a [sic] party practices
in the current political system overall.”1118
Canada’s hypocrisy can be seen more clearly if we look at its democracy and
human rights promotion agenda from a regional perspective. Canada has not
sought to promote “honest debate” in allied countries, such as Colombia, despite
that country’s terrible human rights record, and the regular targeting of dissidents
and opponents of natural resource development by state and non-state security
forces. Governed by right-wing administrations, Peru has also not received the
same attention from Canada’s democracy and human rights promotion initia-
tives under the Harper government, despite ongoing violence against indigenous
communities. Peru, according to Foreign Affairs, is a “like-minded partner on
issues of democracy, human rights and prosperity.”1119 Foreign Affairs did spend
C$167,400 to help political parties’ “platform-development capacities,” with
particular focus on getting parties to engage Peruvians outside of Lima—where
the resistance to mining is strongest—more effectively.1120 Lima is, however, the
headquarters for Canada’s Andean Unit for Democratic Governance (audg),
which was established in 2009 to develop and coordinate democracy promotion
work in the region. A fait report on the opening of the Centre, in discussing its
chosen location, remarked that “Canada considers Peru to be an important partner
in the hemisphere to build strong, effective and accountable democracies.”1121 The
same year Canada opened the Unit in Lima, President Alan García’s security forces
killed over thirty indigenous protesters in its ongoing assault on the opposition
to natural resource development. But because the Peruvian government is an ally,
it is democratic.
Security Policy
The diplomatic and political interference described above is accompanied by a
more sinister approach to shaping political and economic outcomes in the region.
The opposition to Canadian interests in the Andes is viewed by Canadian politi-
cal leaders as a security threat. We need to understand that security concerns for
imperialist countries are not simply reducible to physical threats against them;
and, indeed, in this case no credible claim could be made that any country in Latin
America, including in the Andes, poses such a threat to Canada. The threat is to
the security of Canadian capital and its ability to make profit in the region. The
interests of Canadian capital are, after all, what drives Canada’s engagement with
the region in the first place. Whereas in Central America this challenge has for
the most part remained at the level of social movement organizing, in the Andes
it includes governments, which raises the security stakes for Canada. What we
are witnessing is the securitization of Canadian foreign policy in the Americas,
involving alliance with particular countries as a front against popular movements
and governments that are not sufficiently compliant with imperialism.
Venezuela
Certainly the U.S. has taken the lead on the practical and ideological sides of the
security question in the Andes. The U.S., Eva Golinger has demonstrated, was work-
ing behind the scenes in support of the failed 2002 coup against Chávez. It maintains
a series of military bases throughout the region. Meanwhile, the American Right
has tried to link Venezuela to Islamic terrorism, of course without any demonstrable
proof. The U.S. Congressional Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence
actually held hearings on support for Hezbollah in Latin America. Witnesses, such
as neocon Roger Noriega, sought to make links between Venezuela and terrorism,
based in part on Chávez’s expedient alliance with Iran. The point is that, for the
American political establishment, Venezuela, and left-wing populism more gener-
ally, are security threats.1122
The Canadian government, as we have noted, claimed Chávez was an authori-
tarian ruler, contrary to the facts. From the claims that Chávez is a dangerous
authoritarian—based on the active imagination of Canadian policymakers—and
the fear of his growing regional influence, it was only a short step to the conclusion
that Venezuela was a security threat that needed to be contained. In the internal
fait discussions on Venezuela, the potential dangers of the Venezuelan military
are a regular thematic focus. Canada, one report notes, “is [redacted] observing
Venezuela’s rearmament and growing weapon’s purchases.”1123 An increase in
military spending by Venezuela is identified as part of the dangerous regional anti-
neoliberal agenda of Chávez, rather than an-under-the-circumstances reasonable
response to real external threats. Venezuela has faced foreign meddling by impe-
rialist powers, including an attempted coup, and the violation of its sovereignty by
the Colombian military, while in 2009 the U.S. reached a deal with Colombia for
use of seven military bases. It is actually acknowledged by observers in fait that
Venezuelan military spending as a percentage of gdp is lower than most countries
in South America, including Canadian ally and chronic human rights offender,
Colombia.1124 It is worth considering, too, that Venezuelan defense spending is not
projected to match the significant increases in Canadian defense spending in the
next decade, nor is Venezuelan military spending used to project power in North
America. But Canada’s military spending (consistently in the top fifteen nations
in the world), increased security cooperation with Colombia, support for security
forces in Honduras and Guatemala, and establishment of a new military base in
Jamaica are of course no threat to stability or security in the region.
Colombia
As the government most aggressively sympathetic to the interests of foreign capital
in the region, and with a war-hardened security apparatus well positioned to play
a frontline role in the defense of imperialism, Colombia has become the anchor of
Canada’s Andean security posture. Since the late 2000s, Colombia has been receiv-
ing Canadian training and funding through Foreign Affairs’ Counter-Terrorism
and Anti-Crime Capacity Building Program, and since 2011 that support has been
provided through dnd’s Military Training and Cooperation Program.
The geopolitical side of Canada’s Colombian posture is summed up well in
the Bogotá embassy’s 2006–2007 Country Strategy report, which acknowledges
the terrible human rights situation in the country but reflects that nevertheless
“it is, in important ways for Canada, a bastion of stability in its region despite
the internal conflict.”1125 It is not that the Canadian embassy values stability for
Colombian workers, indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, peasants, or anyone
else who falls on the wrong side of state and paramilitary terror; rather Canadian
diplomacy values the stability of the Colombian state only insofar as it helps to
secure the geopolitical and economic interests of Canada, in a region where other
governments are not as readily compliant to Canadian interests. The condition of
workers, Afro-Colombians, indigenous peoples, peasants and so on is beside the
point from the Canadian state’s perspective. In a political context like the Andes,
there is a premium on having an ally such as the Colombian state.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in 2009, Harper was unambiguous in stressing
the geopolitical importance of Colombia to Canada. Colombia, he reflected, is an

important “ally” in a region “with serious enemies and opponents.”1126 This view is
held by key Liberals in Ottawa as well—it is worth remembering that the Chretien
Liberals laid the groundwork for the deepening of political ties with the Colombian
regime in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Harper government subsequently
built upon and extended the existing diplomatic infrastructure. Scott Brison, a
former Tory who led the Liberals’ support for the Canada-Colombia Free Trade
Agreement (fta), put his defence of the ostensibly economic treaty in realist
geopolitical terms (with the usual dose of hyperbole): “If we isolate Colombia in
the Andean region and leave Colombia exposed and vulnerable to the ideological
attacks of Chávez’s Venezuela, we will be allowing evil to flourish.”1127
The two countries’ militaries discussed closer cooperation at least as early as
2009 during a visit to Colombia by several Canadian military leaders. That meeting
followed a visit by Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff that same year, and a meet-
ing between Stephen Harper’s National Security Advisor, Marie-Lucie Morin,
and President Uribe (all government documents for Morin’s trip are completely
redacted).1128 A background report written within National Defence observes
that Colombia has “a professional, joint, military that is looking to expand its role
outside its borders” and that, in line with the geopolitical thinking of Canadian
policymakers discussed above, there is a “strategic importance of Colombia to
Canada.”1129 In fact, Colombia had already expanded its role outside its borders
in 2008, a year before the 2009 discussions of greater military cooperation with
Canada noted above, when it caused a diplomatic crisis in the region after violating
Ecuadorian sovereignty in an attack on a farc encampment. While Colombia’s
action was condemned by most countries in the region, a U.S. embassy communi-
qué refers to comments made by fait’s Director General for the Caribbean, James
Lambert, to the U.S. embassy in Ottawa expressing Canada’s support for Colombia,
though wanting to be cautious in how that support is publicly expressed so as not
to unnecessarily alienate the region.1130 The Uribe regime was also notable for its
constant military sabre rattling with neighbouring Venezuela.1131
Relations were deepened with the March 2014 signing of a memorandum of
understanding (mou) for defense cooperation between Canada and Colombia.
The memorandum indicates that this is to be part of “a strategic framework for
increasing [military] relations” between the two countries. Defence Minister Peter
MacKay remarked that he was “very satisfied by the signing of this memorandum
of understanding with Minister Pinzón. With the growing emphasis of Canada in
Latin America, and given the importance of Colombia in the continent, there are
increasing opportunities for Canada and Colombia to learn from one another.”1132
Not only is the increase in security cooperation connected to the role Colombia
plays in the region, but it also obviously comes at a time when Canadian investment
is increasing in the country following the fta. The Canadian government and capi-
tal are cognizant that while great strides have been made in improving investment
conditions in mining and oil and gas, that process is not complete: guerrilla forces
are still active—a reminder of which came in 2013 when a Canadian mining execu-
tive was held hostage by the eln for seven months—and communities of resistance
are still standing in the way of resource development on their land. During Harper’s
visit to Colombia in August 2011, he announced increased security support for
Colombia, ultimately laying the foundations for the mou. Harper and President
Santos discussed security for Canadian companies investing in Colombia. The
Canadian Prime Minister noted that while improvements have been made there
are still concerns that need to be addressed.1133
Canada has also sought to bolster the Colombian security apparatus by expand-
ing arms sales. In fact, the Liberal government permitted the sale of dozens of
helicopters that can be used as gunships to the Colombian military in the 1990s.1134
In 2012, the Harper government added Colombia to the Automatic Firearms
Country Control List (it also added Peru). This means that Colombia is now one
of a few dozen countries to which Canada can export automatic assault weap-
ons—guns that are banned in Canada. The Canadian government rather coldly
notes that the addition of Colombia to the list “opens new market opportunities”
for Canadian weapons exporters, but the flipside of this business opportunity is
arming a military whose role in Colombia and the region is important to the pursuit
of Canadian interests beyond the profits of the arms industry.1135 Just weeks after
Colombia was added to the Firearms Control List, General Dynamics Land Systems
Canada, supported by the Canadian Commercial Corporation, won a C$65.3 mil-
lion contract to sell twenty-four light armoured vehicles to the Colombian Ministry
of National Defence.1136 In 2013, Canada also provided C$550,000 in equipment
to the Colombian national police for detection of and protection against chemical,
biological, and nuclear explosives.1137
Exporting the Colombian Model

As we noted in our earlier discussion of Central America, Canada is also helping
to extend the military reach of Colombia into the isthmus—thus adding to that
region’s militarization—through its partnership with the Andean country’s secu-
rity forces in Honduras. In effect, Canada’s support for the Colombian military is
contributing to an increasingly militarized form of democracy throughout large
parts of Latin America, where electoralism and the nominal existence of liberal
rights intersect with powerful state and non-state security apparatuses and the
routinization of violent assaults against political opposition.
Canada has also fostered stronger security ties with Peru, which it counts on
as an ally in the uncertain Andean region.1138 Several trips in the 2010s to Peru by
Canadian cabinet ministers to advance Canadian investment also witnessed the

establishment of security cooperation agreements (one involving the Canadian
Commercial Corporation) and commitments by Peru to purchase Canadian secu-
rity technologies. Canada, the Prime Minister’s Office reported upon concluding
one of the mous, “aims to deepen defence and security relations between the two
countries, and to facilitate and improve cooperation for the purchase of services or
military and defence equipment by Canadian companies to the Peruvian Ministry
of defense.”1139 One of the Canada-Peru mous led to the creation of the Instituto
Técnico de las Fuerzas Armadas (Armed Forces Technical Institute) in 2012.1140 In
2013, Canada sold Twin Otter aircraft to Peru, which have dual-purpose capacity
for military use.1141 The Peruvian air force, as noted above, has trained with the
Canadian Air Force in Canada.
Finally, the securitization of Canadian foreign policy also led the Harper
Conservatives to establish a military base in Jamaica. While references are made to
terror threats and counternarcotics work by military spokespeople and political lead-
ers—and indeed the Canadian Navy has conducted interdictions in the Caribbean
Sea, as well as illegally in Jamaican territorial waters, on ships suspected of drug
trafficking—it would be shortsighted to see the establishment of a military base on
those grounds alone given Canada’s expanding economic interests and their vulner-
ability. The base is rather about the desire to project Canadian power and rapidly
react to situations of “instability” in a region in which Canadian capital is one of the
most powerful economic forces, with extensive interests that require protection.
Conclusion
Canada has been laying the groundwork for deeper security ties throughout Latin
America and the Caribbean. Democracy and human rights promotion has thus far
had limited pay off in Ecuador and Venezuela, though such investments, while they
may be inspired by short-term ambitions, are also viewed as long-term projects. If
openings do present themselves at some point, Canada or Canadian-funded and
-trained organizations, are positioned to insert themselves and exploit the opportu-
nities. Strong security links offer an alternative approach to the same goal: instability
for progressive forces, stability for Canadian capital. Whatever Canada may claim
publicly about these policies, the tell is simple enough to read. The most violent
and authoritarian governments in the region, one of which—Colombia—has a
track record of violating the sovereignty of its neighbours, are held up as beacons
of democracy, while their security forces are targeted for deeper relations with
Canada. Meanwhile, social movements and governments that pose a threat to the
smooth reproduction of neoliberalism in the region are portrayed as imminent
threats to Latin America’s security and democracy.
Part iv
Conclusion
277
Chapter 10
Expansion Continues,
Resistance Persists
T he Central American and Andean countries covered in this book offer perhaps
the most extensive examples of the dialectic of expansion and resistance in recent
years. As Canada is one of the largest foreign investor nations in Latin America,
this dialectic not surprisingly extends throughout the region. Canadian interests,
the interventions in pursuit of them, and the opposition they face are spread far
and wide.
Geographies of Canadian Capital

With C$16.6 billion invested in mining, utilities, infrastructure, and banking in
Chile, for example, Canada is amongst the largest foreign investors in the southern
cone Andean nation. The biggest Canadian project is Barrick Gold’s C$8.5 billion
Pascua Lama, an extremely controversial planned open-pit gold mine located on
the side of a mountain on the Chilean-Argentine border. If allowed to proceed it
would involve the removal of glaciers and thus deprive thousands of small farm-
ers downstream of a major source of fresh water. But widespread opposition, and
the arrogance of Barrick displayed in the giant company’s efforts to do an end-run
around proper environmental assessment and permission processes, has led to
Pascua Lama facing suspensions, major delays, and costly conditions and fines
imposed on it by the Chilean government.1142 But the world’s largest gold company
never backs away from a fight, particularly given the size of Pascua Lama, and it has
had the support of Stephen Harper, who stumped for the company to Chilean politi-
cal leaders, and met with company representatives during a trip to Chile in 2007.1143
278
Expansion Continues, Resistance Persists 279
Across the border in Argentina, where Pascua Lama extends, Canadian com-
panies such as Barrick and Goldcorp dominate mining investment and exercise,
with the support of the Canadian government, considerable influence. When the
Argentine Congress passed legislation in 2008 to protect glaciers from large-scale
mining, directly threatening Barrick’s present and future operations, President
Cristina Fernández vetoed it in response to pressure from Canadian investors,
including Barrick. When the Congress passed new legislation to protect and
mandate the mapping of glaciers into law, Barrick won an injunction against it in
the province of San Juan so that its Veladero mine would be able to continue its
operations, arguing that the law was unconstitutional because it interfered with
its earnings from sunk investments.1144 In 1997, Barrick was also granted what one
writer describes as a “virtual country” by Chilean and Argentine presidents Eduardo
Frei and Carlos Menem, consisting of three thousand kilometres in the Cordillera
de los Andes, allowing for exploitation with few regulations or conditions. The
law outlining this “virtual country” was reportedly written with assistance from
Barrick itself.1145 In Catamarca, pickets against Barrick have been violently put down
by police, while a violent police assault against people protesting a Yamana Gold
mine under construction in 2010, which injured sixty people, “sparked a popular
uprising of citizens” against the project.1146
Testifying to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and
International Development (scfaid) in Ottawa in 2009, the former Argentine
Secretary of the Environment from 2006–2008 reflected on the pernicious power of
Barrick in her country: “Barrick Gold is a modern example of a powerful economic
giant that unscrupulously manipulates local politics and is skirting environmental
and social controls to maximize profit.” It has wielded, she argued, what Argentines
have called “the Barrick veto” over their country’s environmental and natural
resources policy. More sinister still, she notes that as Secretary of Environment,
“My closest staff and I were personally and physically threatened following our
mining intervention.…My office was wire-tapped, my staff was bought, and the
public officials that once controlled Barrick for me became paid officials of Barrick
Gold.”1147 The “Barrick veto” is, in fact, something that has extended to Canadian
companies more generally. After Argentina announced, to the anger of Canadian
capital, new export taxes in 2008, a cable from the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires
reported that “the GoA, led by the Secretary of Mining, has worked quietly with
Canadian companies to find ways to work around the new federal regulations.”1148
Given what we have discussed throughout this book, it is extremely unlikely such
behind the scenes work was done without the support of the Canadian embassy.
In Mexico, meanwhile, Canadian companies are the fourth largest source of
foreign investment. Benefiting from the North American Free Trade Agreement
(coming into force in 1994, nafta was the cutting edge of international trade
agreements) and decades of liberalization in Mexico, they are heavily invested in

the country’s banking and maquila sectors, though over half of Canada’s C$12.3
billion of fdi (2013) is in mining. Goldcorp, for instance, was the largest single
foreign investor in Mexico in 2010, and over 70 percent of the total foreign min-
ing companies operating in Mexico have been Canadian in recent years. Mining
industry organization camimex forecasts US$13 billion in exploration investment
over the next several years, over half of which will be from Canadian companies.1149
Canada has also offered technical assistance as the Mexican government begins
the privatization of its oil industry.
As is the case throughout the region, Canadian investment has been met by
concerted resistance throughout Mexico, from local communities engaging in road
blockades, to mine shutdowns and wildcat strikes over wages and working condi-
tions. But repression and violence are the norm for those that challenge Canadian
interests in Mexico. Six opponents of Canadian mining projects were killed between
2009 and 2014. Many others have faced death threats. In May 2008, the Mexican
government sent its military and police to crush an occupation against Fortuna
Silver’s Trinidad mine, arresting dozens, and entering and searching homes of
company opponents.1150 One Canadian company, Gammon Gold, responded to
a work stoppage in 2010 by firing four hundred of its workers.1151
Canadian companies operating in Mexico can rely on the steadfast support of
the embassy. Faced with blockades, New Gold Mining Co. was ordered to halt its
San Xavier operations in late 2009 by the Mexican Environmental Enforcement
Agency, a directive which the company ignored. Some of New Gold’s contracts with
local communal landowners were found to be fraudulent, and its environmental
permit illegal.1152 A flurry of emails circulated through the embassy following the
order to stop operations, and the embassy developed its public response—which
of course supported New Gold—with help from the company itself.1153
On November 27, 2009, a well-known anti-mining activist, Mariano Abarca,
was murdered. Abarca was a leading organizer against a Blackfire Exploration barite
mine in Chiapas. His murder led to large demonstrations against the company,
forcing the temporary shutdown of the mine by the Mexican government, which
cited environmental concerns.1154 Blackfire responded by suing the Mexican gov-
ernment for C$800 million under chapter 11 of nafta, claiming damages and lost
earnings due to the closure. Blackfire was subsequently investigated by the rcmp
for bribery allegations relating to payments made by the company to a local mayor
to contain opposition to its mine.1155
According to Jennifer Moore and Gillian Colgrove, whose report on the role of
the Canadian Embassy in the Blackfire affair drew on hundreds of pages of embassy
documents gleaned from Access to Information requests, the embassy played a
central role in supporting the company. “Even after Abarca had been killed, the
mine had been suspended, and corruption allegations had surfaced,” they write,
“the Embassy continued to defend the company to Mexican state officials and
provided it with information on how to sue the State of Chiapas under the North
American Free Trade Agreement (nafta) for closing the mine.” They conclude that
“the Embassy’s active and unquestioning support may have acted as a disincentive
for Blackfire to comply with local and international laws.”1156
The embassy’s support for human rights violators in Mexico comes as no sur-
prise of course. It is performing the same role its counterparts perform throughout
the region, while the Canadian government, from the pursuit of nafta under the
Liberals to the Conservative’s quick support for the right-wing Felipe Calderón’s
controversial 2006 election victory over Centre-Left candidate Manuel López
Obrador, has sent clear signals about where its priorities in Mexico lie. More
recently, the Conservatives have embraced the militarization of Mexico, just as
they have throughout Central America. In 2009, rcmp officers began training
Mexican Federal police—a force with serious corruption problems, which has
been implicated in massive human rights abuses. Mexico is also a part of Canada’s
Directorate of Military Training and Cooperation, which has had no discernible
impact on its military’s human rights record.1157 But as with the security appa-
ratuses in Central America, reform is beside the point. Building deeper formal
and informal ties, and gaining some discernible influence with them to ensure
the country remains a stable and secure place to do business, is instead what lies
behind Canada’s security engagement in Mexico. In 2012, the same Mexican army
and federal police broke up a blockade of Excellon Resources’ La Platosa mine
by union and community members.1158 Anticipating the possible liberalization of
Mexico’s oil and gas industry, Public Safety Canada and the Mexican government
have worked on an assessment of security needs for offshore oil and gas projects.1159
Another country worth highlighting here is the Dominican Republic, in which
Canada is the largest foreign investor nation with C$548 million in mining,
sweatshop manufacturing, and banking capital. The Canadian investment that
has attracted the most attention and opposition in recent years is Barrick’s Pueblo
Viejo gold mine in Cotuí (Goldcorp has a minority stake in the mine). One of the
largest gold mines in the world, it received financing from Export Development
Canada worth upwards of C$500 million.1160 Opposition to Pueblo Viejo has
involved marches against the project and a campaign calling for a ban on cyanide
use in the country. In 2010, while still in the construction stage, an accident led
to the chemical poisoning of over four hundred workers. Although the workers
reported hearing a blast before falling ill, Barrick initially blamed the illnesses on
food poisoning.1161
In response to criticism from environmental movements, scientists, and land-
owners who claim Barrick took their land without permission or compensation,
the project was defended publically by Canada’s ambassador, who argued that, “It’s
not only important what will be obtained there in economic terms but also envi-
ronmentally.”1162 Exactly what will be “obtained” environmentally is unclear. The
Dominican Republic has also received a number of Canadian cabinet ministers on
official visits to discuss Canadian investment interests, none of whom has discussed
the anti-Pueblo Viejo campaign or chemical poisoning. The Minister of State for
the Americas, Diane Ablonczy, visited the Dominican Republic in 2011 and 2012,
and two other cabinet ministers visited in August 2012. Shortly after the latter
visit, a protest against Pueblo Viejo ended with forty persons injured by police.1163
But not everything has proceeded smoothly for Barrick. In the context of public
opposition to the mine and potential super-profits to be earned due to the high
international gold prices when production commenced in 2013, the Dominican
government halted shipments of gold from the mine, demanding higher tax pay-
ments than were originally agreed upon by the company in 2009. The government
argued that for every C$100 Barrick exports in gold, the company will get C$97,
and successfully forced Barrick to pay a higher tax rate.1164
Human Rights and Ecology

The dynamics of uneven development, poverty, and violence in contemporary
Latin America are intimately linked to the political economy of an environmentally-
destructive extractive capitalism, in which multinational corporations displace
peasant and indigenous communities in order to reap the tremendous profits avail-
able in natural resources in the midst of a global commodities boom. Export-led
development in manufacturing based on extremely cheap, mostly female labour,
in which Canadian companies play an important part in Central America, offers
no better hope for Latin American countries than dependency on the natural
resources sector. The purpose of this book has been to highlight the central role
played by Canadian capital and the Canadian state in the extension and deepening
of this human and ecological disaster.
The number of Canadian multinationals operating in Latin America has
exploded since the early 1990s, particularly in the sectors of natural resources and
finance. The consequences for the human rights of affected communities, as well
as the sustainability of their ecological environs, have been calamitous. The pres-
ence of these corporations, and the advancement of their interests in the region,
has depended upon the systematic intervention of the Canadian state in all of its
multifaceted complexity. The response from thousands of Latin Americans has been
the heroic formation of movements of resistance in the face of often ferociously
repressive military and paramilitary goons. The expansion of Canadian capital has
been met at every step with popular confrontation, ranging from legal disputation
against Canadian corporations, to direct action against the frontlines of Canadian

mining development. This unstable and evolving dialectic of Canadian capital’s
expansion and popular contestation has been at the core of our empirical and
theoretical investigation of contemporary Canadian imperialism in Latin America.
Rather than a series of isolated incidents carried out by a few bad apples, we
have shown that the extraordinary violence and social injustice accompanying the
activities of Canadian capital in Latin America are systemic features of Canadian
imperialism in the twenty-first century. We have argued that the only thoroughgoing
framework capable of understanding both the drivers of Canadian foreign policy
in the region and their consequences for local populations is one that situates
Canada as a secondary imperialist power within a global system which systemati-
cally benefits capital from the Global North at the expanse of the people and the
environment in the Global South.
Crucially, this world-enveloping system of imperialism is entirely capitalist in
the twenty-first century. An inherent compulsion toward self-expansion is one of
the key features of capitalism as a social system. The history of capitalist imperi-
alism is one characterized by the production and reproduction of monumental
structural inequalities between regions and states of the world system. Global
capitalism has developed through the rhythms of uneven development, and
the active reproduction of this uneven development through the actions taken
by international financial institutions and the core state powers, including, at a
secondary level, the Canadian state. The world system as it is currently organized
has the effect of draining wealth and resources from subordinate countries, and
redirecting them toward the powerful few. This unevenness is internal to the logic
of capitalist accumulation on a world scale, with complex implications across the
national and regional levels of the global political economy. But while the logic of
accumulation creates unevenness in patterns of development, these patterns are also
produced and reproduced through the intentional state intervention of imperial
powers. Fundamentally, the motivation of these powers, including Canada, is to
keep the world safe for capitalist accumulation generally, and specifically to benefit
the interests of their own capitals.
In addition to its role in producing and reproducing a highly stratified world
system of states, we have also demonstrated that imperialism has an ecological logic.
The dynamics of contemporary imperialism are molded by ecological regimes,
insofar as the naturally occurring resources upon which capitalist accumulation
is dependent are distributed geographically in different concentrations through-
out various regions of the world. The geography of accumulation is rooted in the
targeting of such resources and the systematic intervention in, and transformation
of, the local and regional ecologies attached to these locations. The sustainability
of these ecologies is a very distant priority compared to the short-term impulse of
capitalist profit and self-expansion. Ecological destruction, as we have repeatedly

demonstrated in our examination of contemporary Latin America, is a predictable
outcome of a system institutionally structured around the needs of capital over
and above all other considerations.
Furthermore, just as imperialism and racism have been linked throughout their
histories, the operations of contemporary Canadian imperialism in Latin America
continue to be characterized in the twenty-first century by the rampant dispos-
session of indigenous peoples. Outside Canadian borders, indigenous peoples of
Latin America have been subjected to a pattern of abuse by Canadian capital which
parallels its relationship to indigenous peoples at home. Indigenous claims to land
and territory are consistently ignored by Canadian capital and the Canadian state.
In the worldview underpinning Canadian capital at home and abroad, multinational
corporations are seen to be in unique possession of the progressive capacities
both to appreciate and to profit from the production of the riches hidden under
the soils. Indigenous communities living atop resource deposits ostensibly lack
this necessary awareness and drive, and are thus transformed into obstacles to be
removed—through cooptation if possible, but also coercion if necessary—so that
economic development can proceed. The thrust of Canadian capital’s resource-
sector expansion in Latin America has been premised in many ways on this racist
operative principle, with disastrous consequences for those indigenous communi-
ties conceived as impediments to progress.
The super-profits available to Canadian corporations in Central America have
catalyzed the entanglement of the activities of the Canadian state and Canadian
capital in the region and enhanced their mutual instincts of predation. Indeed, the
depth and extent of Canadian capital’s penetration of Latin America would never
have been possible without the backing of the Prime Minister’s Office, Foreign
Affairs, including the embassies, the Canadian International Development Agency
(cida), both of which are now housed in Global Affairs, National Defence, Natural
Resources Canada, and Health Canada—the true nature of the so-called “whole-of-
government” approach to foreign policy in action. All of these variegated agencies
of the Canadian state have acted with common purpose in Latin America to ensure
the expansion and protection of Canadian capital at the expense of local popula-
tions. Because of the resistance that this expansion inevitably generates, repression
of social movements becomes a necessity. Ideologically, this is justified through a
distortion of notions such as “security” and “democracy,” where the former becomes
narrowly conceived as the exclusive security of private property and the ability of
corporations to make profit, and the latter is reduced to a juridical and political
environment that ensures the same. Canadian foreign policy in Latin America
around the themes of security and democracy is straightforwardly motivated by
securing optimal conditions for foreign investors in the region. There is perhaps
no clearer expression of this ideological framework than Canada’s cynical defence

of “democracy” in the authoritarian context of today’s Honduras.
Other related facets of the ideological and political toolkit of Canadian imperial-
ism in Latin America include development aid and corporate social responsibility
(csr). Canadian spending on legitimate development aid is paltry in comparative
perspective, and the little it does distribute under the formal rubric of aid is, again,
systematically targeted toward the reproduction of the conditions for capital
accumulation generally, and the ability of Canadian corporations to profit more
specifically. csr is in some ways development aid’s still worse twin brother. As
we have demonstrated in detail, csr emerged precisely as a way of containing the
fierce social contradictions generated in local communities as Canadian resource
extractivism advances. Even petty handouts to communities from corporations—
infinitesimal next to profits—are contingent on utter submission to the interests
of private resource development. Barely concealed behind the carrot on offer by
way of csr is always the club of state or paramilitary repression for any recalcitrant
communities standing in the way. csr is a deeply cynical ideological ruse, designed
to buy off communities for pennies once resource development projects have
already been presented as fait accompli.
The uptick in Canadian fdi flows to Latin America has taken place in a context
of a global commodities boom driven by the most dynamic zone of accumulation
in the world market, China. As a response to this international environment, there
has been a wide-scale extension and intensification of mining, oil and gas extrac-
tion, and agro-industrial mono crop cultivation across the region. These processes,
as we have demonstrated, time and again entail violent strategies of accumulation
by dispossession, whereby peasant and indigenous communities are displaced,
and communal properties are transferred to the holdings of multinational capital.
Accompanying this shift to extraction is a changing role for Latin America within
the international division of labour, in some ways a regression to an earlier era
when the region’s principal role was as supplier of raw materials to the core of the
world system.
As we have shown, extractivism in contemporary Latin America is wedded to a
politics of militarized neoliberalism. Violence, fraud, corruption, and authoritarian
practices are routine on the part of militaries and paramilitaries acting at the behest
of big mining companies and resource sectors more generally. The assassination
of social movement leaders and rank and file activists has become commonplace.
The behaviour of participants and social movements is criminalized through the
use of highly flexible labels that can be attached to any organizer standing in the
way of development projects—narco-trafficker, terrorist, or even narco-terrorist.
This book has tried to link the world-systemic dynamics of imperialism and
Canada’s location in those dynamics to the specific manifestations of Canadian
imperialism in the context of contemporary Latin America. Canada has worked

behind the scenes in Honduras, an extremely poor Central American country, to
support violent coup forces, which has opened greater space for Canadian investors
in mining and sweatshop manufacturing. Canada has deepened its economic ties
with Colombia, where opposition to resource extraction or activism in a union
in the resource sector can be a death sentence. Indeed, opponents to Canadian
mining projects have been assassinated in not just Colombia, but Guatemala, El
Salvador, Peru, and Mexico as well. On top of this, Canada has established stronger
links with various security apparatuses in the region, most notably including those
implicated in murder, arbitrary detention, forced disappearances, and a general
commitment to supporting foreign investors against recalcitrant communities.
Canada has been training, conducting joint exercises with, funding, and selling
arms to security forces in Colombia, Peru, Honduras, and Guatemala.
Canadian capital continues to tread heavily over the lives of ordinary Latin
Americans. The mass of evidence we have accumulated in this book makes a
mockery of mining or maquila executives who plead not guilty, pointing to their
firms’ commitments to corporate social responsibility. We have likewise exposed
the cruel hypocrisy of Canada’s claims of genuine commitment to democracy in
contemporary Latin America. Most importantly, we have revealed a systematic,
predictable, and repeated pattern of behaviour on the part of Canadian capital and
the Canadian state in the region. To conclude otherwise would be to willfully miss
the forest for the trees. More than merely revealing the pattern, we have suggested
that it is necessary to explain its recurrence. In order to do so, we have positioned
Canada within a hierarchical world system of imperialism and the uneven accumu-
lation of capital on a global scale. Canada needs to be understood as a secondary
imperialist power reaping benefits from a wider system that flourishes on the
subordination of the Global South to the benefit of the Global North. There is
no inevitability to the smooth unfolding of these dynamic tendencies, however.
Instead, they are chock full of contradiction and unpredictability. Out of the cracks
in this international system of domination, powerful and creative forms of self-
organization and resistance have emerged against the odds. They represent the
greatest threat to the reproduction of capitalist imperialism, and thus the greatest
hope to humanity, social justice, and ecological sustainability.
Notes
1 S. Day, “Address by the Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of International

Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, to the Canadian Council of the
Americas,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, May 1, 2009. Available
online at: http://www.international.gc.ca/media_commerce/comm/speeches-
discours/2009/387207.aspx?lang=eng. Accessed on February 3, 2011.
2 H. Burnett, C. Mouawad, and L-A Bret, “Resource Nationalism and Mining
Reforms: An increaseed potential for international disputes,” Northern Miner,
September 26, 2013. Available online at: http://www.northernminer.com/news/
commentary-resource-nationalism-and-mining-reforms-could-mean-more-
international-disputes/1002758767/. Accessed on September 30, 2013.
3 Exceptions include the reports coming from organizations like Rights Action (www.
rightsaction.org) and Mining Watch (www.miningwatch.ca), or articles published on
Upside Down World (www.upsidedownworld.org). See also T. Gordon, Imperialist
Canada, Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring, 2010. In terms of offering critical insights
into Canada’s increased political and economic engagement in Latin America,
independent journalists and solidarity organizations have been well ahead of the
academic literature. Independent journalism and solidarity organizations, however,
do face structural limits that often prevent them from broadening their insights
and identifying deeper patterns. This book attempts to provide a much-needed
theorization of underlying political-economic processes, and the ways in which these
are tied to wider governmental objectives.
4 P. McKenna’s recent edited collection of essays is emblematic of the weaknesses
of mainstream academic frameworks. While offering some critical insights, it is
significantly limited by the lack of a deeper analysis framed by an understanding of
the broader contours of imperialist-anti-imperialist dynamics that mark capitalist
growth and state power today—no less in the case of Canada than that of other
advanced capitalist powers. Nor does it offer any investigation into political thinking
and decision making within Foreign Affairs, the Canadian International Development
Agency, Natural Resources Canada and the Department of National Defence in
287
Ottawa, or diplomatic missions abroad—often behind the scenes—as they relate to

the imperatives of Canadian capitalist expansion in the region and the challenges it
faces; nor, for that matter, does it make any serious effort to explicate the expansion of
Canadian capital abroad in the first place. In particular, M. Cameron and J. Tockman’s
chapter on the Honduran coup, while correct in some of the criticisms it offers of the
Canadian government’s actions, downplays the broader Canadian geopolitical and
economic motivations for those actions and overstates the Canadian desire to please
the U.S. Shamsie’s article on Haiti, shockingly, says nothing on the Canadian military’s
direct role in the coup against Jean-Bertrand Aristide and post-coup pacification of
his supporters. P. McKenna, ed., Canada Looks South: In Search of an Americas Policy,
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
5 K. Marx and F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto, New York: Penguin, [1888] 2002,
p. 83.
6 D. McNally, Another World is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism, 2nd Edition,
Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2006, p. 28.
7 C. Mooers, Imperial Subjects: Citizenship in an Age of Crisis and Empire, London:
Bloomsbury, 2014, p. 74.
8 H. Bernstein, “Colonialism, Capitalism, Development,” in T. Allen and A. Thomas,
eds., Poverty and Development in the 21st Century, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000, p. 242. The living consequences of settler colonies established historically
continue, of course, by way of dynamic internally colonial race relations in relevant
areas of the world, including Canada.
9 E.M. Wood, Empire of Capital, London: Verso, 2003, p. 153.
10 Wood, Empire of Capital, p. X.
11 Ibid., p. 12.
12 Mooers, Imperial Subjects, p. 5.
13 Wood, Empire of Capital, p. 127.
14 Bernstein, “Colonialism, Capitalism, Development,” p. 250.
15 Quoted in Gordon, Imperialist Canada, p. 26.
16 For a critical survey of the relevant dependency debates as they played out in the
Latin American context, see C. Kay, Latin American Theories of Development and
Underdevelopment: London: Routledge, [1989] 2013.
17 For a general survey of the modernization school within development studies, and
how it compares to dependency and world-systems theories, see A.Y. So, Social
Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-Systems Theories, New
York: Sage, 1990. For an interesting set of reflections on contemporary iterations of
modernization theory in the present global conjuncture, see M. Taylor, “Conscripts
of Competitiveness: Culture, Capital and Institutions,” Third World Quarterly, 31, 4,
2010, pp. 661–579.
18 Perhaps the most notorious proponent of this view was the British Communist Bill
Warren. B. Warren, Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism, London: Verso, 1980.
19 A. Saad-Filho and J. Weeks also problematically entertain uncritical notions of fdi
in the natural resources sector as an important potential source of development
under certain conditions. A. Saad-Fihlo and J. Weeks, “Curses, Diseases and Other
Resource Confusions,” Third World Quarterly, 34, 1, 2013, pp. 1–20.
Notes 289
20 See Gordon, Imperialist Canada.

21 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Direct
Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: eclac, 2012, p. 12.
22 Ibid., pp. 76–77.
23 Ibid., p. 13.
24 Ibid., p. 12.
25 Ibid., p. 47.
26 See H. Veltmeyer and J. Petras, eds., The New Extractivism: A Post-Neoliberal
Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century, London: Zed, 2014; H.
Burchardt and K. Dietz, “(Neo-)Extractivism—A New Challenge for Development
Theory from Latin America,” Third World Quarterly, 35, 3, 2014, pp. 468–486.
27 C. Katz, Bajo el imperio del capital, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Luxemburg, 2011, pp.
115–122; A. Borón, América Latina en la geopolítica del imperialismo, Hondarribia:
Editorial Hiru, 2013, chapters 3–5.
28 J. Seoane, “El retorno de la crisis y la ofensiva extractivista,” in J. Seoane, E. Taddei and
C. Algranati, eds., Extractivismo, despojo y crisis climática: Desafíos para los movimientos
sociales y los proyectos emancipatorios de Nuestra América, Buenos Aires: Herramienta
Ediciones, 2013, p. 93.
29 While his reliance on the theoretical presuppositions of world systems theory are
problematic and restrict his insights, Jason Moore’s (www.jasonmoore.com) notion
of a capitalist world ecology, and of an environment that shapes capitalism rather
than is simply shaped by it, is helpful for thinking through the ecological dimension
of both capitalism and imperialism. J.W. Moore, Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology
and the Accumulation of Capital, London: Verso, 2015. A. Jorgenson and E. Kick, eds.,
Globalization and the Environment, Chicago: Haymarket, [2006] 2009 has helpful
discussions on the environmental component of decision making by capital from the
Global North and states in the South, impacting decisions by the former to invest in
liberalized poorer countries, and the impact this has on the latter’s ecologies.
30 On the North American context as a paradigmatic expression of global trends, see
S. Ferguson and D. McNally, “Precarious Migrants: Gender, Race and the Social
Reproduction of a Global Working Class,” Socialist Register 2015: Transforming
Classes, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2014.
31 A. Shaikh, “Foreign Trade and the Law of Value: Part I,” Science and Society, 43, 3,
1979, pp. 281–302; “Foreign Trade and the Law of Value: Part II,” Science and Society,
44, 1, 1979, pp. 27–57.
32 G. Albo, “Neoliberalism and the Discontented,” in L. Panitch and C. Leys, eds.,
Socialist Register 2008: Global Flashpoints, Reactions to Imperialism and Neoliberalism,
New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007; P. Gowan, The Global Gamble: Washington’s
Faustian Bid for World Dominance, London: Verso, 1999; D. Harvey, A Brief History
of Neoliberalism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; A. Saad-Filho, “From
Washington to Post-Washington Consensus: Neoliberal Agendas for Economic
Development,” in A. Saad-Filho and D. Johnston, eds., Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader,
London: Pluto, 2005.
33 See D. McNally, Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance,
Oakland: PM Press, 2010.
34 On Latin America, see J.R. Webber and B. Carr, eds., The New Latin American Left:
Cracks in the Empire, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013; C. Katz, “Socialist
Strategies in Latin America,” Monthly Review, 59, 4, 2007, pp. 25–41; Katz, Las
disyuntivas de la izquierda en América Latina, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Luxemburg,
2009; W.I. Robinson, “Transformative Possibilities in Latin America,” in L. Panitch
and C. Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2008: Global Flashpoints, Reactions to Imperialism
and Neoliberalism, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007; Robinson, Latin America
and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective, Baltimore, MD: The
John Hopkins University Press, 2008; and E. Sader, The New Mole: Paths of the Latin
American Left, London: Verso, 2011. On the Arab uprisings, see A. Hanieh, Lineages
of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East, Chicago: Haymarket,
2013; and G. Achcar, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. On Greece, see S. Kouvelakis,
“The Greek Cauldron,” New Left Review, II, 72, 2011, pp. 17–32. On Spain in an
international context, see J.M. Antentas and E. Vivas, Planeta indignado: Ocupando
el futuro, second edition, Madrid: Sequitur, 2012.
35 D. Harvey, The New Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 63–66; L.
Panitch and S. Gindin, “Global Capitalism and American Empire,” in L. Panitch and
C. Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2004: The New Imperial Challenge, New York: Monthly
Review Press, 2003; L. Panitch and S. Gindin, “Finance and American Empire,” in
L. Panitch and C. Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2005: The Empire Reloaded, New York:
Monthly Review Press, 2004. It is important to note that we recognize that to refer
to the financialization of capitalism in the contemporary period can be misleading.
Specifically, “the lines between industrial and financial capital are, in practice, often
quite blurred, with giant firms engaging in both forms of appropriating profit. General
Electric, for instance, is as much a bank as it is a manufacturing corporation, while
General Motors and Ford have increasingly relied on their finance divisions in order
to reap a profit.” D. McNally, “From Financial Crisis to World-Slump: Accumulation,
Financialisation, and the Global Slowdown,” Historical Materialism, 17, 2, 2009, p.
56.
36 T. Gordon, “Canada, Empire and Indigenous People in the Americas,” Socialist Studies,
2, 1, 2009, p. 54; D. Green, “A Trip to the Market: The Impact of Neoliberalism in
Latin America,” in J. Buxton and N. Phillips, eds., Developments in Latin American
Political Economy: States, Markets, and Actors, Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1999; D. Green, Silent Revolution: The Rise and Crisis of Market Economics
in Latin America, second edition, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2003; S.
Soederberg, The Politics of the New International Financial Architecture: Reimposing
Neoliberal Domination in the Global South, London: Zed, 2004; S. Soederberg, “The
Transnational Debt Architecture and Emerging Markets: The Politics of Paradoxes
and Punishment,” Third World Quarterly, 26, 6, 2005, pp. 927–949; S. Soederberg,
Global Governance in Question: Empire, Class and the New Common Sense in Managing
North-South Relations, London: Pluto, 2006.
37 J. Williamson, “Democracy and the ‘Washington Consensus,’” World Development,
21, 8, 1993, pp. 1332–1333.
38 P. Dickens, Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy, sixth
Notes 291
edition, New York: The Guilford Press, 2011.

39 Ibid.
40 Gordon, Imperialist Canada, p. 33.
41 Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, London: Verso, 2002, p. 48.
42 Marx, Capital, Volume 1, New York: Penguin, 1990, p. 876.
43 Harvey, The New Imperialism, p. 144.
44 For critical discussion of Harvey’s concept of accumulation by dispossession, see R.
Brenner, “What Is, and What Is Not, Imperialism?” Historical Materialism, 14, 4, 2006,
pp. 79–105; and A. Callinicos and S. Ashman, “Capital Accumulation and the State
System: Assessing David Harvey’s The New Imperialism,” Historical Materialism, 14,
4, 2006, pp. 107–131. On the wider debate focusing on reconceptualising primitive
accumulation in the present see also Werner Bonefeld, “The Permanence of Primitive
Accumulation: Commodity Fetishism and Social Constitution,” The Commoner, 2,
2001. Available online at: http://www.commoner.org.uk/02bonefeld.pdf. Accessed
on October 12, 2014; Massimo De Angelis, “Marx and Primitive Accumulation: The
Continuous Character of Capital’s ‘Enclosures’,” The Commoner, 2, 2001. Available
online at: http://www.commoner.org.uk/02deangelis.pdf. Accessed on October 12,
2014.
45 A. Gilly and R. Roux, “Capitales, tecnologías y mundos de la vida: El despojo de los
cuatro elementos,” Herramienta 40, March 2009. Available online at: http://www.
herramienta.com.ar/revista-herramienta-n-40/capitales-tecnologias-y-mundos-de-
la-vida-el-despojo-de-los-cuatro-elemento. Accessed on October 13, 2014.
46 Most of this data is drawn from Cansim table 376-0051. A number of countries’
numbers are now no longer publicized by Statistics Canada. Thus figures from
Panama are from 2010 and Uruguay 2008. Ecuador, Honduras, and Guatemala data
is supplemented by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean,
Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: eclac, 2012,
pp. 53–54. The 2011 figures for Nicaragua are drawn from J. Mayoral, “Nicaragua
notifica record en inversíon extranjera directa,” Prensa Latina, March 22, 2012.
Available online at: http://www.estrategiaynegocios.net/csp/mediapool/sites/EN/
CentroAmericayMundo/CentroAmerica/Nicaragua/NINegocios/story.csp?cid=4
74153&sid=1432&fid=330. Accessed on March 22, 2012.
47 U.S. fdi figures are drawn from “Balance of Payments and Direct Investment Position
Data,” the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce. Available
online at: http://www.bea.gov/international/di1usdbal.htm. Accessed May 6, 2014.
Regional comparisons are from Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean, Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago:
eclac, 2012, p. 37 and Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean,
Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: eclac, 2005,
p. 22. According to eclac the Netherlands is actually a larger source than is Canada;
however, we did not include the Netherlands here as most of the fdi emanating
from it, according to the eclac, is actually non-Ducth capital rerouted through the
Netherlands from various different national sources. Note that U.S.- and Canada-
specific fdi data from each countries’ respective statistical gathering agencies can
be broken down for Latin America specifically, but data comparing major fdi source
countries in the western hemisphere taken from eclac does not provide that degree
of specificity, hence our reference to “Latin America and the Caribbean combined.”
48 See P. McFarlane, Northern Shadows: Canadians in Central America, Toronto: Between
the Lines, 1989; W. Stewart, Towers of Gold, Feet of Clay: The Canadian Banks,
Toronto: HarperCollins, 1982. See also P. Hudson, “Imperial Designs: the Royal
Bank of Canada in the Caribbean,” Race & Class, 52, 1, 2010, pp. 33–48. Northern
Shadows covers far more than just banking, offering a rare critical history of Canada’s
relationship to Central America.
49 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Investment in
Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: eclac, 2007, p. 151.
50 G. Robertson, “Scotiabank sees bright future in South America,” Globe and Mail,
January 23, 2013, p. B5; C. French, “Scotia hikes Latin American footprint,” National
Post, August 15, 2012, p. FP5; S. Pasternak, “Scotiabank Eyeing Acquisitions in Latin
America,” Bloomberg, April 5, 2011. Available online at: http://www.bloomberg.com/
news/articles/2011-04-05/scotiabank-looking-at-acquisitions-in-latin-america-
porter-says. Accessed on April 6, 2011.
51 S. Ogawa et al., “Financial Interconnectedness and Financial Sector Reforms in
the Caribbean,” imf Working Paper, July 2013; The Economist, “The Canadian
connection: Providing Banking, Business, and Policemen,” The Economist, March 27,
2008. Available online at: http://www.economist.com/node/10925797. Accessed
on May 10, 2012.
52 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Investment in
Latin America and the Caribbean, Santiago: eclac, 2007, p. 144.
53 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Building the Canadian Advantage: A
Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy for the Canadian International Extractive
Sector,” March 2009. Available online at: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mining-materials/
publications/8776). Accessed on April 8, 2014.
54 Canadian mining asset figures are from Natural Resources Canada. Available online
at: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/mining-materials/publications/15382. Accessed on
May 6, 2014. The category of the “Americas” is not broken down for Latin America
specifically, though it is clear from the www.northernminer.org property database that
most of those assets are in Latin American countries not Caribbean. Note that “assets”
are not the same as fdi: “assets” include, for example, non-Canadian financing and
the destination rather than source of investment (i.e., it includes Canadian investment
that might pass through the U.S.).
55 Canadian International Development Platform, “Canadian Mining Investments in
Latin America,” June 2013. Available online at: http://cidpnsi.ca/canadian-mining-
investments-in-latin-america/. Accessed on April 8, 2014; P. Heindrich, Personal
Communication, March 19, 2013.
56 The data comes from the www.northernminer.com property database, searched on
April 8, 2014. According to the database, there were 100 producing mines owned
by a company headquartered in Canada.
57 Toronto Stock Exchange, “Mining Sector Fact Sheet,” February 21, 2014. Available
online at: tmx.com. Accessed on April 7, 2014.
58 We identified these three companies using the Canadian International Development
Notes 293
Platform’s 2012 revenue totals.

59 Data on domestic Canadian profit rates were provided to us by Geoff McCormack,
whose calculations were based on Cansim tables 031-0002, 380-0063, and 382-0006.
60 Company data is from annual financial reports and csr reports. The revenues and
costs are for operating mines only (i.e., exploration costs for new mineral resources
are not included) and do not include revenues unrelated to digging gold out of the
ground and selling it, such as earnings from hedging and interest. For 2013, we used
“all-in” costs for our cost measure; for previous years we used “total cash” costs plus
capital expenditures (or “expenditure on mining costs” for Goldcorp). The costs
are calculated on a gold “sold” rather than “produced” basis (though the difference
between the two was never significant) to get a more accurate picture of the costs
associated with the actual source of revenue—the gold sold. Gold not sold is in any
case kept as reserve and thus as an asset to be sold in the future. Barrick is the only
company of the three that consistently reports its taxes and royalties on a segmented
basis for its specific operating mines. Goldcorp’s “community investment” figures are
not provided by the company past 2009 or are not aggregated for region or specific
operating mines. Yamana’s construction costs are accounted in its capital expenditures,
thus we did not calculate a post-construction capital expenditure cost for it.
61 This number is based on news reports found in the mainstream Canadian press,
alternative media, and the Latin American press. Countries in which killings have
occurred are: Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Panama.
62 Canadian Centre for the Study of Resource Conflict, “Corporate Social
Responsibility: Movements and Footprints of Canadian Mining and Exploration
Firms in the Developing World,” Canadian Centre for Resource Conflict, October,
2009; L. Whittington, “Canadian mining firms the worst abusers: Report,” Toronto
Star, October 19, 2010, p. A12.
63 See Gordon, Imperialist Canada, pp. 255–258.
64 One measure of the importance of Latin America to the Harper government was
the frequency of ministerial visits to the region. Harper himself toured the region in
2007, visited Honduras in 2011, and toured several more countries again in 2013.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird, toured in the summer of 2013. Multiple visits
to Colombia were made by different Canadian cabinet ministers during negotiations
for the fta, and Peter Kent and Diane Ablonczy, as consecutive Ministers of State
for the Americas held ministerial roles to specifically target the region.
65 L. Berthiaume, “Harper dials up vision of activist Canada prepared to face new,
emerging threats,” Embassy, June 13, 2011. Available online at: http://www.
embassynews.ca/news/2011/06/13/harper-dials-up-vision-of-activist-canada-
prepared-to-face-new-emerging-threats/42083. Acccessed on June 14, 2011.
66 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Military Expediture Database.
Available online at: www.sipri.org. Accessed on March 27, 2013; B. Robinson,
“Canadian Military Spending 2010–11,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives,
March 2011. Available online at: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/
reports/canadian-military-spending-2010-11. Accessed on April 2, 2011; C. Meyer,
“dnd cuts billions, military heads into ‘lower pace of operations’,” Embassy, March
29, 2012. Available online at: http://www.embassynews.ca/news/2012/03/29/
budget-2012-dnd-cuts-billions-military-heads-into-%E2%80%98lower-pace-of-oper
ations%E2%80%99/42209?absolute=1. Accessed on March 31, 2012; D. D. Pugliese,
“Canadian military intends to spend $1 billion on armed drones,” Ottawa Citizen,
August 6, 2012. Available online at: www.ottawacitizen.com. Accessed on August
8, 2012. On expanding the war-fighting capacity of the Canadian military in recent
years, see also Gordon, Imperialist Canada, pp. 294–301, 308–312.
67 For more on the coup and Canada’s central role in the coup and post-coup violence,
see P. Hallward, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment,
London: Verso, 2007; Gordon, Imperialist Canada, pp. 326–343; N. Barry-Shaw and
D. Oja Jay, Paved With Good Intentions: Canada’s development ngos from idealism to
imperialism, Halifax: Fernwood, 2012, pp. 225–242.
68 Radio Santa Fe, “Colombia y Canadá firmaron Acuerdo de Cooperación en
Seguridad Integral,” April 14, 2012. Available online at: http://www.radiosantafe.
com/2012/04/14/colombia-y-canada-firmaron-acuerdo-de-cooperacion-en-
seguridad-integral/. Accessed on April 14, 2012.
69 R. Calderon, “Mining issues,” San Salvador: Canadian Embassy, June 27, 2011. Access
to Information, file A-2012-00533.
70 A. Bebbington quoted in Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs and International
Development, 41st Parliament, 1st Session, February 29, 2012, 3.
71 Mining Watch, “Canadian Embassies Bring Journalists to Mining Convention from
Countries Mired in Conflict,” March 6, 2012. Available online at: http://www.
miningwatch.ca/news/canadian-embassies-bring-journalists-mining-convention-
countries-mired-conflict. Accessed on March 6, 2012.
72 Quote is from a Dfait document, quoted in J. Ibbitson, “Ottawa’s ‘economic
diplomacy’ marks historic shift,” Globe and Mail, November 27, 2013, p. A1.
73 S. Brown, “Aid Effectiveness and the Framing of New Canadian Aid Initiatives,” in
S. Brown, ed., Struggling For Effectiveness: cida and Canadian Foreign Aid, Montreal:
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012, pp. 79–107.
74 Canadian aid figures to Latin America are from the country profiles of the individual
Latin American countries on the website of the Canadian International Development
Agency (cida). Available online at: www.acdi-cida.gc.ca. These figures do not include
financing to the regional Inter-American Development Banks, which is included in
the separate cida statistical tables. While cida counts this financing, which totalled
C$241.7 million in 2011–2012, as part of its aid budget, just over 1 percent of
disbursements from the Inter-American Development Bank (iadb) are in the form
of grants. The rest are loans repayable with interest or loan guarantees rather than
direct bilateral or multilateral aid not requiring repayment with interest. And all iadb
grants are exclusive to Haiti. See Inter-American Development Bank, Annual Report
2012: Financial Statement, Washington, DC: iadb, 2012; Canadian International
Development Agency, Statistical Report on International Assistance, 2011–12,
Ottawa: cida, 2012. Remittance figures are from the World Bank’s “Migration and
Remittances Data.” Available online at: www.worldbank.org. Accessed on March 14,
2014.
75 S. Knack, F. Rogers and N. Eubank, “Aid Quality and Donor Rankings,” World Bank
Policy Research Working Paper, May 2010. Available online at: http://elibrary.
Notes 295
worldbank.org/doi/abs/10.1596/1813-9450-5290. Accessed on January 27,

2013. On Canada’s poor international development aid performance, in terms of
spending and programming relative to other donor nations, see H. McGill, “Canada
Among Donors: How Does Canadian Aid Compare?” in Brown, ed., Struggling For
Effectiveness, 24–52.
76 In “Aid Effectiveness,” Brown also identifies commercial interests as in part behind
the increased stress on “effectiveness” in Canadian development aid decision-making
in the 2000s. However, his suggestion that “international prestige” has played a more
important role in Canadian aid policy, at least from Chretien through the early days of
the first Harper (minority) government, considerably weakens his argument. It may
be true that there was a desire to “be at the table” with major aid donors in a number
of countries in which Canada has concentrated its aid, but even in the late stages of the
Liberal governments and early stages of the Harper government one is hard pressed to
conclude this trumped the desire to advance the expansion of Canadian capital. Most
of the countries Canada identified for “enhanced partnerships” under the Liberals
and, subsequently, as “countries of focus” under the Tories were countries in which
Canadian companies already had interests or were identified as places with investment
potential, particularly in the natural resources sector. And if we situate aid policy first
and foremost as always intimately connected to broader foreign policy goals within
the global capitalist economy—as one tool for the reproduction of contradictory
capitalist market relations—we see that the interests of Canadian capitalism have
always played an important role in shaping Canadian foreign, and aid, policy, and that
the more explicit pronouncements to this effect by Julian Fantino, and the collapse
of cida into the new Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development is not a radical break
from the past by any means. See, for example, Gordon’s discussion of aid policy in
Imperialist Canada, p. 142–152; Barry-Shaw and Jay, Paved With Good Intentions; D.
Morrison, Aid and Ebb Tide: A History of cida and Canadian Development Assistance,
Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier, 1998; and B. Campbell, “Peace and Security in Africa
and the Role of Canadian Mining Interests: New Challenges for Canadian Foreign
Policy,” Labour, Capital and Society, 37, 2004, pp. 104–106.
77 J. Fantino, “Address of the Honourable Julian Fantino, Minister of International
Cooperation, for The Economic Club of Canada, ‘Reducing Poverty—Building
Tommorow’s Markets’,” November 23, 2012, Toronto: Canadian International
Development Agency.
78 J. Fantino, “Effectiveness, not religion, part of aid decisions,” Embassy, January 30,
2013, p. 7. This view of development policy being tied to private sector forces as a
matter of economic necessity is articuled in a November 2012 report of the Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, “Driving Inclusive
Economic Growth: The Role of the Private Sector in International Development,”
41st Parliament, 1st Session, and the government’s March 7, 2013 response, both
available at www.parl.gc.ca. An internal cida analaysis of its bilateral aid programming
links explicitly decisions on where to focus aid to potential for commerical ties.
K. Mackrael, “Ottawa stresses trade prospects in foreign aid decisions,” Globe and
Mail, January 8, 2014, p. A1. We also discuss this issue in subsequent chapters. It is
important to keep in mind here that Fantino’s position is not a new orientation for
Canadian aid policy. His is a blunter exposition than what we have seen in the past,
however. See, for example, Gordon, Imperialist Canada, and Barry-Shaw and Jay,
Paved With Good Intentions.
79 E. Blackwood and V. Stewart, “cida and the Mining Sector: Extractive Industries
as Overseas Development Strategy,” in Brown, ed., Struggling for Effectiveness, pp.
217–245.
80 D. Saunders, “Second wave of financial crisis is coming, Brown warns,” Globe and
Mail, July 8, 2009, p. A4. As Blackwood and Stewart observe, “nine of the twenty
cida countries of focus have among the top twelve largest reserves of the six most
important metals in world mining.” And another seven countries contain the largest
quantities of other minerals considered “vital for industrial purposes” or are “highly
valued as in the case of gemstones, such as as uranium, diamonds, and phosphate.
Blackwood and Stewart, “cida and the Mining Sector,” p. 228. Canadian aid is not
being taylored simply for the natural resource industry; companies from a range of
industries have met and travelled with Fantino to discuss cida support for Canadian
investment in Latin America. However, the natural resource sector is obviously a
major force behind the international expansion of Canadian capital, and clearly
Fantino and the Conservatives paid special attention to its needs. A. Foster, “The
private sector and development: More than just mining companies,” Embassy, April
24, 2013, p. 11.
81 L. Berthiaume, “Did kairos defunding come down to mining interests and one
hand-written note?” Embassy, October 27, 2010, pp. 1, 10. The hand-written note
in question led to a rebuke from the Conservative Speaker of the House, as cida
senior staff, after initial concerns about Kairos, eventually recommended approval
of funding for the organization to the Minister for International Cooparation, Bev
Oda. But the document recommending approval was subsequently altered—with
Oda initially denying involvement—with “not” written by hand onto it between
“you” and “approve.” Oda would eventually admit to ordering “not” be written onto
the recommendation. A year before this incident aid groups were reporting to media
about being warned about doing advocacy work by staffers for Oda. C. Clark, “Aid
groups told to keep quiet on policy issues,” Globe and Mail, February 12, 2010, p. A4;
B. Curry and G. Galloway, “Oda admits to changing memo, Harper Tories accused of
secrecy,” Globe and Mail, February 15, 2011, p. A1; C. Clark, “Speaker rebukes Oda
in Kairos case,” Globe and Mail, February 11, 2011, p. A8.
82 K. Shane, “Why did cida cut Development and Peace’s funding?” Embassy, March
21, 2012, pp. 1, 5.
83 D. LeBlanc, “Miners show new way for cida,” Globe and Mail, January 30, 2012, p.
A4.
84 Prime Minister’s Office, “Prime Minister Harper Announces Support for Economic
Growth and Development in the Americas,” Ottawa: Prime Minister’s Office, April
14, 2012.
85 Canadian International Development Agency, “Extractive Sector Program in the
Americas,” Ottawa: Canadian International Development Agency, April 2012, Access
to Information—cida, A-2012-00119.
86 Canadian International Development Agency, “Minister Fantino announces
Notes 297
ubc-sfu to partner with Government on new extractive institute,” Toronto: Canadian

International Development Agency, November 23, 2012.
87 R. Arnold, “Mining, cida partnership in Peru is pacification program, not
development,” Embassy, March 5, 2012. Available online at: http://m.embassynews.
ca/opinion/2012/03/07/mining-cida-partnership-in-peru-is-pacification-program-
not-development/41338?device=mobile. Accessed on March 6, 2012.
88 Canadian International Development Agency, Project Browser, “Indigenous Peoples’
Partnership Program.” Available online at: http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/cidaweb/cpo.
nsf/vWebWBSEn?OpenView&RestrictToCategory=A031825. Accessed on February
25, 2013.
89 Blackwood and Stewart, “cida and the Mining Sector,” p. 226.
90 Under pressure to take measures as awareness of the predatory activities of the
Canadian resource sector began to grow in Canada, the Conservative government
decided instead to stall by organizing “roundtables” for “stakeholders” (industry
representatives and ngos) in 2006. Despite the conservative recommondations
of the roundtables, the Conservative government instead placed responsibility for
accountability and oversight on the governments of the countries where Canadian
companies invest—some of whom have been targeted by Canada for the neoliberal
reforms of the regulatory regimes. An ombuds office was established as well, allowing
for people to make complaints against Canadian companies. However, company
participation is purely voluntary and victims of Canadian mining abuses have quit the
process, arguing it is useless. Indeed the ombudsperson eventually quit. K. Keenan,
“Canadian Mining: Still Unaccountable,” nacla: Report on the Americas, May/June,
2010, pp. 29–34. A subsequent push for accountability came from Liberal backbench
mp, John McKay, in 2010. While limited in the forms of accountability it would
have required of Canadian companies—cutting off public financial and diplomatic
support if proven they were involved in human rights and ecological abuses and no
criminal law implications—the bill still failed to pass in the minority parliament of
the day by seven votes: 13 Liberal and 4 ndp mps failed to show up for the vote. B.
Curry, “Ethical mining bill defeated after fierce lobbying,” Globe and Mail, October
28, 2010, p. A6.
91 A. Rosales, “Going Underground: The Political Economy of the ‘Left Turn’ in South
America,” Third World Quarterly, 34, 8, 2013, pp. 1443–1457; J. Seoane, E. Taddei,
and C. Algranati, Extractivismo, despojo, y crisis climática: Desafíos para los movimientos
socials y los proyectos emancipatorios de Nuestra América, Buenos Aires: Herramienta
editores, 2013; N. Grinberg and G. Starosta, “From Global Capital Accumulation to
Varieties of Centre Leftism in South America: The Cases of Brazil and Argentina,”
in S. Spronk and J.R. Webber, eds., Crisis and Contradiction: Marxist Perspectives on
Latin America in the Global Economy, Leiden: Brill, 2015.
92 This paragraph draws on J. Seoane, “Modelo extractivo y acumulación por despojo,”
in J. Seoane, E. Taddei and C. Algranati, eds., Extractivismo, despojo y crisis climática:
Desafíos para los movimientos sociales y los proyectos emancipatorios de Nuestra América,
Buenos Aires: Herramienta Ediciones, 2013, pp. 26–27.
93 J. Seoane and C. Algranati, “El sabor amargo del crecimiento economic: la expansion
del modelo extractive entre 2003 y 2008,” in Seoane, Taddei and Algranati, eds.,
Extractivismo, despojo y crisis climática, p. 68.

94 Ibid., pp. 68–70. This list of neoliberal militarized states is not exhaustive, and does
not include the authoritarian regimes that were installed following coup d’états in
Honduras (2009) and Paraguay (2012), which will be discussed later.
95 S. Gindin and L. Panitch, The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of
American Empire, London: Verso, 2013, see pp. 41, 115.
96 Gordon, Imperialist Canada; Barry-Shaw and Jay, Paved With Good Intentions; J.
Klassen, Joining Empire: The Political Economy of the New Canadian Foreign Policy,
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014; J. Klassen and G. Albo, eds., Empire’s
Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
97 Publications include The Bullet (www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/); Upside Down World
(//upsidedownworld.org); Dominion (www.dominionpaper.ca), and Znet (znet.org),
among others. Solidarity organizations include Rights Action and Mining Watch.
98 L. Salomón, “Honduras: A History That Repeats Itself,” nacla Report on the Americas,
45, 1, 2012, p. 58.
99 A successful coup was carried out against Jean Bertrand Aristide in Haiti in 2004,
and unsuccessful attempts were made against Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 2002 and
Evo Morales in Bolivia in 2008. A third successful coup, of a specific parliamentary
variety, has recently been carried out in Paraguay. See T. Gordon and J.R. Webber,
“Paraguay’s Parliamentary Coup and Ottawa’s Imperial Response,” The Bullet, June
26, 2012.
100 G. Grandin, “Building a Perfect Machine of Perpetual War: The Mexico-to-Colombia
Security Corridor Advances,” The Nation, February 11, 2011. Available online at:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/158492/building-perfect-machine-perpetual-
war-mexico-colombia-security-corridor-advances. Accessed on January 15, 2013.
101 J. Littell, “Lost in the Void,” London Review of Books, 34, 11, June 7, 2012; D. Paley,
“Drug War Capitalism: Militarization and Economic Transformation in Colombia and
Mexico,” Against the Current 159 ( July-August), p. 22; P. Watt and R. Zepeda, Drug
War Mexico: Politics, Neoliberalism and Violence in the New Narcoeconomy, London:
Zed Books, 2012; D. Stokes, America’s Other War: Terrorizing Colombia, London:
Zed Books, 2005.
102 A. Bird, “Drugs and Business: Central America Faces another Round of Violence,”
nacla Report on the Americas, 45, 1, 2012, p. 35;
103 Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Direct Investment
in Latin America and the Caribbean 2011, Santiago, Chile: eclac, 2012.
104 V. Bulmer-Thomas, “Honduras Since 1930,” in L. Bethell, ed., Central America Since
Independence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 193, 196.
105 W.I. Robinson, Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and
Globalization, London: Verso, 2003, pp. 118–119.
106 Regime transitions throughout Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s generally
involved a shift from direct authoritarian military rule to “low-intensity” democracy,
or polyarchy, “a system in which a small group actually rules, on behalf of capital,
and participation in decision making by the majority is confined to choosing among
competing elites in tightly controlled electoral processes.” See W.I. Robinson,
“Global Crisis and Latin America,” Bulletin of Latin American Research 23, 2, 2004,
Notes 299
pp. 134–153.
107 W. LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, second edition,
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, p. 179.
108 Bulmer-Thomas, “Honduras Since 1930,” pp. 223–224.
109 J.A. Booth, “Socioeconomic and Political Roots of National Revolts in Central
America,” Latin American Research Review, 25, 1, 1991, p. 48.
110 See, for example, A. Corr, No Trespassing: Squatting, Rent Strikes and Land Struggles
Worldwide, Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999, pp. 30–50.
111 C.D. Brockett, “The Structure of Political Opportunities and Peasant Mobilization
in Central America,” Comparative Politics, 23, 3, 1991, pp. 259–260.
112 Ibid., p. 259.
113 Booth, “Socioeconomic and Political Roots,” p. 54.
114 LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, p. 182.
115 Robinson, Transnational Conflicts, p. 124.
116 LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, p. 264.
117 L. Gill, The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the
Americas, Durham: Duke University Press, 2004, p. 83.
118 G. Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the
New Imperialism, New York: Owl Books, 2006, p. 114.
119 Robinson, Transnational Conflicts, p. 124. See also, N. Chomsky, Turning the Tide:
The U.S. and Latin America, second edition, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1987, pp.
128–129.
120 P. Flynn, “The United States at War in Central America: Unable to Win, Unwilling to
Lose,” in R. Burbach and P. Flynn, eds., The Politics of Intervention: The United States
in Central America, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984, p. 113.
122 Ibid., p. 123, emphasis in original.
123 Flynn, “The United States at War,” p. 111.
124 Chomsky, Turning the Tide, p. 128–129.
125 LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, pp. 310–311.
126 Grandin, Empire’s Workshop, p. 115. “Most famously,” Grandin writes, “[Oliver]
North [of the National Security Council] created an elaborate circuit of exchange
that, with the help of Israeli arms traders, sold U.S. missiles to Iran at inflated prices,
with the profits from the deal used to supply the Contras. There is ample evidence,
not the least of which comes from North’s handwritten notes, that the cia employed
Latin American cocaine and marijuana dealers as middlemen, using their planes to
ship arms to the contras in exchange for easy access to American markets.”
127 Gill, The School of the Americas, p. 83.
128 LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, p. 312, 331–332.
130 G. Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. 14.
131 J. Dunkerley, The Pacification of Central America, London: Verso, 1994.
133 See ibid., pp 127–132, for details on the political expressions of these
externally-oriented fractions of Honduran capital in the form of New Right clusters

within both the National and Liberal parties.
134 J.A. Booth, C.J. Wade, and T.W. Walker, Understanding Central America: Global
Forces, Rebellion, and Change, Fourth edition, Boulder: Westview, 2006, p. 144; and
Robinson, Transnational Conflicts, p. 129.
135 Booth, Wade, and Walker, Understanding Central America, p. 145.
136 For a detailed discussion of this general trend across the Global South see M. Davis,
Planet of Slums, London: Verso, 2006.
137 S.R. Boucher, B.L. Barham, and M.R. Carter, “The Impact of ‘Market-Friendly’
Reforms on Credit and Land Markets in Honduras and Nicaragua,” World
Development, 33, 1, 2005, p. 108.
138 R. Ruben and M. van den Berg, “Nonfarm Employment and Poverty Alleviation of
Rural Farm Households in Honduras,” World Development, 29, 3, 2001, p. 550.
139 Ibid., p. 551. For some basic detail on this matter, see also K. Kok, “The Role of
Population in Understanding Honduran Land Use Patterns,” Journal of Environmental
Management, 72, 2004, pp. 73–89.
140 T. Kerssen, “The Military-Aid Complex, Agrofuels and Land Struggles in Aguán,
Honduras,” Food First, October 6, 2011. Available online at: http://www.foodfirst.
org/en/Honduras+land+grabs. Accessed on February 2, 2013.
141 W.I. Robinson, Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization
Perspective, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2008, p. 120.
142 eiu, Honduras: Country Profile 2008, London: Economist Intelligence Unit, pp. 15–16.
This reports also points to the rise since the mid-1990s of non-traditional exports such
as shrimp, tilapias, melons, and African palm oil. In the traditional agricultural sector,
it charts the renewal of high prices in coffee since 2004 and the increased production
that has consequently arisen, whereas bananas have suffered from increases in tariffs
in the European Union. One of the areas highlighted to be of great interest to foreign
investors is the mining of zinc, silver, lead, and gold. Honduras is thought to have
large unexploited mineral deposits that could become available for foreign investors
if controversial environmental legislation can be passed.
143 Ibid., p. 24.
144 J.A. Ocampo, “Latin America and the Global Financial Crisis,” Cambridge Journal of
Economics, 33, 2009, p. 704.
145 It should be noted that while Honduras benefited overall from the high price of its
principal export commodities in these years it also suffered from the high price of
oil between 2004 and 2007 given its status as a petroleum importer.
146 eclac, Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean
2005, Santiago: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2006,
p. 129.
147 eiu, Honduras: Country Profile 2008, p. 17.
148 eclac, Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2008,
Santiago: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2009, p. 113.
See also, N. Mapstone, “Remittance Flows to Latin America Fall Sharply,” Financial
Times, August 12, 2009.
149 undp, Human Development Report 2009, New York: United Nations, 2009.
Notes 301
150 undp, Human Development Report 2011, New York: United Nations, 2011.
151 cepal, Panorama social de América Latina 1999–2000, Santiago: Comisión
Económica para América Latina y el Caribe, 2000, p. 269.
152 cepal, Panorama social de América Latina 2008, Santiago: Comisión Económica para
América Latina y el Caribe, 2009, p. 16.
153 cepal, Social Panorama of Latin America 2011, Santiago: Comisión Económica para
América Latina y el Caribe, 2011, pp. 16–17.
154 eiu, Honduras: Country Profile 2008, p. 13.
155 Ibid., p. 11.
156 On the Vía Campesina, see A. Desmarais, La Vía Campesina: Globalization and the
Power of Peasants, London: Pluto, 2007.
157 D. Frank, Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America,
Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2005, p. 58. Hurricane Mitch, which struck in
October 1998, left more than 11,000 dead, and an astonishing 2 million people
homeless (of a total population of 7.1 million). Among the worst hit were the rural-to-
urban migrants “who had settled on the crowded hillsides surrounding Tegucigalpa,
which were washed away.” See Booth, Wade, and Walker, Understanding Central
America, p. 145.
160 A. Portes and K. Hoffman, “Latin American Class Structures: Their Composition
and Change During the Neoliberal Era,” Latin American Research Review, 38, 1, 2003,
pp. 66–70.
161 M. Edelman, “Transantional Organizing in Agrarian Central America: Histories,
Challenges, Prospects,” Journal of Agrarian Change, 8, 2-3, 2008: 229–257.
162 Grandin, Empire’s Workshop, p. 207.
163 J. Wolseth, “Safety and Sanctuary: Pentacostalism and Youth Gang Violence in
Honduras,” Latin American Perspectives, 35, 4, 2008, p. 99.
164 T. Mejía, “In Tegucigalpa, The Iron Fist Fails,” nacla Report on the Americas, July-
August, 2007, p. 27.
165 Ibid., p. 27.
166 Ibid., p. 28.
168 Ibid., p. 146.
169 A. Bracken, “Honduras: Murder Never Went Away,” Le Monde Diplomatique,
English Edition, October, 2008. Available online at: http://mondediplo.
com/2008/10/13honduras. Accessed on July 25, 2009. Two other mao activists,
Heraldo Zúñiga and Roger Ivan Cartagena, were assassinated by national police
agents in 2006.
170 Ibid.
171 J.R. Webber and B. Carr, “Introduction: The Latin American Left in Theory and
Practice,” in Webber and Carr, eds., The New Latin American Left.
172 eiu, Honduras: Country Profile, London: Economist Intelligence Unit, 2008.
173 G. Grandin, “Democracy Derailed in Honduras,” The Nation, June 30, 2009.
174 eiu, Honduras: Country Profile, London: Economist Intelligence Unit, 2008, p. 12.
175 eiu, Honduras Politics: Mixed Report Card for Zelaya, London: Economist Intelligence
Unit, 2009.
176 J. Romero, “La coyuntura económica del golpe: Crisis del regimen e inestabilidad
del modelo de acumulación,” Socialismo o Barbarie, 23/24 (December), 2009, pp.
129–138.
177 eiu, Honduras: Country Profile, London: Economist Intelligence Unit, 2008, p. 10.
178 Ibid.
179 L. Hernández Navarro, “La conversión de Manuel Mel Zelaya,” La Jornada, July 1,
2009.
180 The Economist, “Zelaya Plays the Chávez Card,” The Economist, October 30, 2008,
http://www.economist.com/node/12522958?story_id=12522958. Accessed July
2, 2009.
181 The Economist, “Leaning Left: Honduras Joins a Club Promoted by Venezuela and
Cuba,” The Economist, October 20, 2008.
182 “Supporters of the coup,” Mark Weisbrot notes, “argue that the president violated
the law by attempting to go ahead with the referendum after the Supreme Court
ruled against it. This is a legal question; it may be true, or it may be that the Supreme
Court had no legal basis for its ruling. But it is irrelevant to what has happened: the
military is not the arbiter of a constitutional dispute between the various branches
of government.” See M. Weisbrot, “Hondurans Resist Coup: Will Need Help from
Other Countries,” The Guardian, July 9, 2009.
183 Vásquez, it is relevant to point out, was trained at the School of the Americas on two
separate occasions, in 1976 and 1984. The commander of the air force, Javier Prince
Suazo, who also played a part in the coup d’état, was trained at the school in 1996.
See D. Brooks, “Golpe de estado en Honduras,” La Jornada, July 1, 2009.
184 The composition of the 128 seats in Congress was as follows: Liberal Party (62);
National Party (55); Partido de Unificación Democrática (Democratic Unification
Party, pud) (5); Partido Demócrata Cristiana (Christian Democratic Party, pdc)
(4); and the Partido de Innovación Nacional y Unidad-Social Demócrata (Party
of National Innovation and Social Democratic Unity). The only party that formally
took a position against the coup was the PUD.
185 G. Grandin, “Battle for Honduras—And the Region?” The Nation, August 31, 2009.
186 T. Gordon and J.R. Webber, “Honduran Labyrinth,” Jacobin, Issue 10, 2013. Available
online at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/04/honduran-labyrinth/. Accessed
on May 29, 2014.
187 D. Frank, “The Thugocracy Next Door,” Politico Magazine, February 27, 2014.
Available online at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/honduras-
the-thugocracy-ext-door-103883.html#.U4TbbU0U_cs. Accessed on May 27, 2014;
T. Gordon and J.R. Webber, “Honduran Labyrinth,” Jacobin, Issue 10, 2013. Available
online at: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/04/honduran-labyrinth/. Accessed
on May 29, 2014.
188 D. Frank, “A High-Stakes Election in Honduras,” The Nation, November 6, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.thenation.com/article/177028/high-stakes-
election-honduras. Accessed on May 28, 2014.
189 Rights Action, “Context of the Honduran Electoral Process 2012–2013: Incomplete
Notes 303
List of Killings and Armed Attacks Related to Political Campaigning in Honduras,”

E-Bulletin, October 21, 2013. Available online at: http://rightsaction.org/sites/
default/files/Honduras-Violence-Political-Campaign.pdf. Accessed on May 29,
2014; D. Frank, “Hopeless in Honduras? The Election and the Future of Tegucigalpa,”
Foreign Affairs, November 22, 2013. Available online at: http://www.foreignaffairs.
com/articles/140283/dana-frank/hopeless-in-honduras. Accessed on May 28, 2014.
190 E. Achtenberg, “Report from Honduras: How the Election Was Stolen,” nacla
Report on the Americas, December 9, 2013. Available online at: https://nacla.org/
blog/2013/12/9/report-honduras-how-election-was-stolen. Accessed on May 29,
2014.
191 D. Frank, “The Thugocracy Next Door”; E. Malkin, “World Bank is Criticized for
Honduran Loan,” New York Times, January 10, 2014. Available online at: http://www.
nytimes.com/2014/01/11/world/americas/world-bank-is-criticized-for-honduran-
loan.html. Accessed on May 29, 2014.
192 On Canada’s response to pre-coup developments, see Gordon, Imperialist Canada,
pp. 376–377.
193 P. Kent, “Statement by Minister Kent on the Situation in Honduras,” Ottawa, Foreign
Affairs and International Trade July 19, 2009.
194 Arsenault, Situation Report, Tegucigalpa: Office of the Canadian Embassy, June 25,
2009, Access to Information, file A-2009-00780.
195 Kent quoted in Rights Action, “Honduras Coup Alert 41,” Washington, August 2,
2009.
196 P. Kent, “Canada Calls for Restraint and a Negotiated Solution in Honduras,” Ottawa:
Foreign Affairs and International Trade, September 22, 2009.
197 For further discussion on Canada’s non-response to the violent repression of anti-
coup activists, see Gordon, Imperialist Canada, pp. 377–379.
198 Independent Honduran human rights organizations, such as Comité de Familiares
de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras (Committee of Family Members of the
Disappeared of Honduras, cofadeh) and Comité para la defensa de los Derechos
Humanos (Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, codeh) issued regular
reports on the political repression.
199 Kent quoted in M. Lacey and G. Thompson, “Envoy prepares to visit Honduras,
warning of obstacles,” New York Times, July 3, 2009. Available online at: http://www.
nytimes.com/2009/07/03/world/americas/03honduras.html?_r=0. Accessed on
July 4, 2009.
200 Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, 40th
Parliament, 3rd Session, Ottawa: March 21, 2011, 18.
201 N. Reeder, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy, October 30, 2009,
Access to Information, file A-2010-01179.
203 Minaker, Arsenault, Reeder, “Honduras: Internal Dynamics and the alba Dimension,”
Tegucigalpa: Office of the Canadian Embassy, Specific date unknown, 2009, Access
Access to Information, file A-2010-01179; P. Valdes, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa:

Canadian Embassy, October 8, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01179.
205 P. Kent, “Canada Congratulates Honduran People on Elections,” December 1, 2009.
Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru and the U.S. also recognized the elections immediately.
206 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Memorandum for Action—Recommended
Canadian Policy Tools for Possible Use in Upcoming oas Mission to Honduras,”
Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, November 30, 2009, Access to
Information, file A-2010-0242.
208 J. Valdes, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy, October 3, 2009,
209 Canadian frustrations were expressed in various Situational Reports sent from the
office of the embassy in Tegucigalpa to Foreign Affairs and International Trade
and, sometimes, the Canadian International Development Agency, in Ottawa.
For example, D. Arsenault, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy,
September 24, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01179; P. Valdes, Situational
Report, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy, October 8, 2009, Access to Information,
file A-2010-01179; N. Reeder, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy,
November 3, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01179.
210 J. Valdes, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Office of the Canadian Embassy, September
29, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01179. This communication also
mentions a discussion with Canadian business representatives about their concerns,
but the details are fully redacted.
212 A. Culham, “Special Period of Session of the General Assembly,” Washington: oas,
June 1, 2011. Available online at: www.oas.org. Accessed on June 2, 2011.
213 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Honduras Country Strategy Process 2008–
09, San José, Canadian Embassy: 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-02422.
214 P. Kent, “Minister of State Kent Concludes Successful Visit to Honduras,” February
22, 2010; El Heraldo, “Canciller de Canadá reitera apoyo a Honduras,” El Heraldo,
February 18, 2010. Available online at: www.elheraldo.hn/Ediciones/2010/02/18/
Noticias/Canciller-de-Canada-reitera-apoyo-a-Honduras. Accessed on March 1,
2010.
216 Author unidentified, “Canadian Contribution to Honduran Truth Commission—
Background,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, date unknown, Access
217 L. Edwards, “Canadian Contribution to Honduran Truth Commission—
Memorandum for Action,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, date
unknown, Access to Information, file A-2010-01236.
Notes 305
219 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Pleased With Release of Honduran
Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report,” Ottawa: July 7, 2011.
221 Canada’s silence around human rights abuses immediately following the coup can be
contrasted with its the three press releases it issued in a two-week span earlier in June,
2009 condemning the Iranian government’s clampdown on protests following that
country’s controversial presidential elections. One repressive government warrants
direct criticism, the other does not. For a look at the different response by Canada
to repression in Iran, on the one hand, and repression in Honduras and Peru, on
the other, see T. Gordon, “Acceptable versus Unacceptable Repression: A Lesson
in Canadian Imperial Hypocrisy,” Counterpunch, June 30, 2009. Available online
at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/06/30/acceptable-versus-unacceptable-
repression/. Accessed on June 30, 2009.
222 La Tribuna, “Stephen Harper: Males de derechos humanos no son perpretrados por
el gobierno,” La Tribuna, August 12, 2011.
223 N. Reeder, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy, February 22, 2010,
Parliament, 3rd Session, Ottawa: March 9, 2011, 14–15.
226 The Associated Press, “Honduras: Court Clears Six Generals in Overthrow of
President in 2009,” New York Times, October 21, 2011. Available online at: http://
www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/americas/honduras-court-clears-generals-
in-overthrow-of-zelaya.html. Accessed on October 21, 2011.
227 M. Rojas Bolaños, “Centroamérica: ¿anomolías o realidades?” Nueva Sociedad 226,
March-April 2010, p. 111; R. Sáenz, “‘Tienen miedo porque no les tenemos miedo’:
Después del golpe—rebellion, negociación y resistencia,” Socialismo o Barbarie,
23/24, December 2009, pp. 139–145; R. Sáenz, “El retorno de Mel Zelaya,” Socialismo
o Barbarie, 23/24, December 2009, pp. 147–154.
228 “Pinocheletti” refers to Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator in power between
1973 and 1990. A. Borón, “Honduras: la futilidad del golpe,” Rebelión, June 29, 2009;
F. Cuevas and H. Weissert, “World Leaders Increase Pressure on Honduras,” The
Globe and Mail, June 30, 2009.
229 A. Cano, “Zelayistas desafían el toque de queda; hay decenas de heridos,” La Jornada,
June 29, 2009.
230 Á. Cálix, “Honduras: de la crisis política al surgimiento de un nuevo actor social,”
Nueva Sociedad, 226, 2010, p. 44.
231 D. Frank, “Repression’s Reward in Honduras?” Counterpunch, September 25, 2010.
Available online at: http://www.counterpunch.org/frank09232010.html. Accessed
on September 25, 2010.
232 Gobierno de Unidad Nacional de Honduras, Honduras: A Country Open for Investment,
Tegucigalpa: Gobierno de Unidad Nacional de Honduras, 2011.
233 Ibid., p. 1
234 C. Mackay, “Canadá y Honduras, trabajando juntos,” El Heraldo, July 1, 2011. Available
online at: http://archivo.elheraldo.hn/Ediciones/2011/07/01/Opinion/Canada-
y-Honduras-trabajando-juntos. Accessed on July 1, 2011.
235 La Prensa, “Listo financiamento para obras de ciudad modelo,” La Prensa, July 8, 2011.
Available online at: http://archivo.laprensa.hn/Apertura/Ediciones/2011/07/09/
Noticias/Listo-financiamiento-para-obras-de-ciudad-modelo. Accessed on July 8,
2011. For the sake of comparison, U.S. fdi in 2010 was C$1.058 billion at an average
exchange rate for 2010 of C$1.03 per US$1. Readers should also bear in mind when
considering this comparison that the U.S. economy is roughly ten times the size
of Canada’s. Canada, in other words, has a comparable absolute and high relative
rate of investment compared to the U.S. See data from the Bureau of Economic
Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce (available online at: http://www.bea.gov/
iTable/index_MNC.cfm) and the Bank of Canada (available online at: http://www.
bankofcanada.ca/rates/exchange/10-year-converter/).
236 Personal Interview, Pedro Landa, Tegucigalpa, June 24, 2011.
237 A. Buncome, “The world’s riches and the poor: dark side of the gold rush,” The
Independent, May 11, 2006. Available online at: http://news.independent.co.uk/
world/americas/article363616.ece. Accessed on October 1, 2009; C. Amador, R.
Escober and R. Gamero, personal interview, Tegucigalpa, June 17, 2011. Maverick
executive quoted in D. Kosich, “No love lost between Honduran ngos and miners,”
Mineweb, August 18, 2004. Available online at: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/
view/mineweb/en/%20page15831?oid=14930andsn=Detail. Accessed on August
29, 2009.
238 Development and Peace, “The Honduran Mining Law—the Debate over Reforms
or a New Law,” Montreal, September 2007; A. Ludeña, “Still no mining law,” Latin
America Press, April 1, 2011. Available online at: http://www.latinamericapress.org/
articles.asp?item=2&art=6345. Accessed on May 4, 2011.
239 Development and Peace, “The Honduran Mining Law”; A. Bird, “Community Leaders
Arrested on Trumped Up Charges for Protecting Forests From Illegal Loggers Linked
to Goldcorp,” Washington: Rights Action, July 5, 2011.
240 P. Landa, Personal Interview, Tegucigalpa, June 24, 2011. Critics of Goldcorp also
reported in July 2009 that the company paid ex-workers and other locals to attend
pro-coup rallies in the capital. Rights Action, “Honduras Coup Alert 41,” Rights
Action Electronic Bulletin, August 2, 2009.
241 Office of the Embassy, “Meeting with Yamana Gold Officials and Site Visit,”
Tegucigalpa: Office of the Embassy, date unknown, 2008, Access to Information,
file A-2009-00780.
242 The connection between mining companies and the coup likely inspired an anti-
coup “mob” which, according to a letter from a Goldcorp executive sent to the
ambassador and the head of cida in the country, targeted the company’s office during
an August 2009 demonstration, graffiting its walls and throwing rocks at its windows.
E. Villacorta, “Office in Tegucigalpa,” email communication between Goldcorp
representative and Canadian embassy and cida office in Tegucigalpa, Tegucigalpa:
Honduras, August 24, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2009-01803.
243 Wimmer, “Canada-Honduras Commerical Relations,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
Notes 307
International Trade, November 10, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01177.

244 P. Landa, Personal Interview, Tegucigalpa, June 24, 2011.
245 D. Aresnault, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy, June 30, 2010,
246 N. Reeder, Communication to Ottawa, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy, July 26,
247 The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum received C$150,000
from fait in 2010, a few months before Reeder’s suggests its services to Breakwater.
“Disclosure of Grant and Contribution Awards Over $25,000: Foreign Affairs.”
Available online at: http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/
transparency-transparence/grant-subvention.aspx?lang=eng. Accessed on December
8, 2010.
248 The quotations and discussion regarding the mining law is taken from a series of email
communications between Bob Carreau of Breakwater Resources and the Canadian
embassy from May 11–25, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-00532.
249 E. Wang, “Re: Honduras article in the Ottawa Citizen,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, March 4, 2012, Acess to Information, file A-2012-01135. The
official adds, as is rote in Canadian government discussion of mining laws, that the
law will promote socially responsible mining.
250 The quote is from El Heraldo and is cited in J. Moore, “Canada’s Subsidies to the
Mining Industry Don’t Stop at Aid,” Mining Watch, June, 2012. Available online
at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/sites/www.miningwatch.ca/files/Canada_and_
Honduras_mining_law-June%202012.pdf. Accessed on June 28, 2012.
251 El Heraldo, “Avanza dictamen de Ley de Minería en Honduras,” El Heraldo, May 31,
2011. Available online at: archivo.elheraldo.hn. Accessed on June 1, 2011.
252 La Tribuna, “Ley de Minería vuelve a la agenda legislativa del 2012,” La Tribuna,
January 4, 2012. Available online at: http://www.latribuna.hn/2012/01/04/ley-
de-mineria-vuelve-a-la-agenda-legislativadel-2012/. Accessed on January 4, 2012.
253 Communiqué, “Honduran organizations reject the National Congress’ proposed
mining law because it violates the rights of the Honduran people,” Mining Watch.
Available online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/honduran-civil-society-
groups-reject-proposed-mining-law-puts-corporate-interests-human-rights. Accessed
on January 25, 2012.
254 Amador, Escober and Gamero, Personal Interview, Tegucigalpa, June 17, 2011.
255 F. Bianchini, Contaminación de agua en el area de explotación minera del proyecto
San Martin, en el Valle de Siria y repercusiones sobre la salud humana, 2006. Available
online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/dangerous-contamination-levels-siria-valley-
demonstrated-independent-study. Accessed on January 8, 2011.
256 K. Spring and G. Russell, “Goldcorp and Honduran Regime Cover-up Blood and
Urine Testing and Poisoning at San Martin Mine,” Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin,
April 27, 2011.
257 J. Almendarez, “Cover-Up: Goldcorp (Entre Mares) and the Government of
Honduras Hide Information About the Poisoning of Children,” Rights Action,
Electronic Bulletin, November 8, 2011.
258 Spring and Russell, “Goldcorp and Honduran Regime Cover-up Blood and Urine
Testing and Poisoning at ‘San Martin’ Mine.” www.rightsaction.org (April 27, 2011),
accessed April 27 2011.
259 R. Carroll, “Gold Giant Faces Honduras Inquiry into Alleged Heavy Metal Pollution,”
Guardian, December 31, 2009. Available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/
environment/2009/dec/31/goldcorp-honduras-pollution-allegations. Accessed on
July 26, 2013.
260 P. Landa, “La policía nacional captura al secretario del comité ambienta a list del
Valle de Siria,” Tegucigalpa, July 5, 2011; A. Bird, “Community Leaders Arrested on
Trumped Up Charges.”
261 K. Spring, “Military Coups, Mining and Canadian Involvement in Honduras,” Rights
Action, Electronic Bulletin, September 10, 2010.
262 Comité por la Libertad de Expresión, “Representante de minera amenaza a periodistas
en el occidente de Honduras,” C-Libre, November 24, 2011. Available online
at: http://www.clibrehonduras.com/alerta/representante-de-minera-amenaza-
periodistas-en-el-occidente-de-honduras. Accessed on November 25, 2011.
263 B. Marotte, “Gildan becomes global sock king with U.S. purchase,” Globe and Mail,
April 12, 2011, p. B5.
264 María Luisa Regalado, Personal Interview, San Pedro Sula, June 18, 2011.
Parliament, 3rd Session, Ottawa, March 9, 2011, 7.
266 codemuh, “Open Letter to The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister
of Canada,” Choloma, Honduras, August 12, 2011.
267 La Prensa, “Empresario de la pornografía dirige proyectos en Trujillo,” La Prensa,
March 7, 2011. Available online at: http://www.laprensa.hn/honduras/548832-97/
empresario-de-la-pornografia-dirige-proyectos-en-trujillo. Accessed on March 8,
2011.
268 Canadian Business, “Next-generation havens,” Canadian Business. Available online
at: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-news/next-generation-havens/.
Accessed on June 27, 2011.
269 S. Parra, “Honduran Caribbean on a Tightrope,” Inter Press Service, June 26, 2010.
Available online at: http://www.ipsnews.net/2010/06/environment-honduran-
caribbean-on-a-tightrope/. Accessed on July 6, 2010.
270 La Prensa, “Empresario de la pornografía dirige proyectos en Trujillo,” La Prensa,
March 7, 2011. Available online at: http://www.laprensa.hn/honduras/548832-97/
empresario-de-la-pornografia-dirige-proyectos-en-trujillo. Accessed on April 4, 2016;
Life Vision Properties, “Randy Jorgensen Meets with President Lobo.” Available
online at: http://lifevisionproperties.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/randy-jorgensen-
meets-with-president-lobo/. Accessed on June 28, 2011.
271 Life Vision Properties, “Randy Jorgensen Presented Special Award from President
Lobo.” Available online at: http://lifevisionproperties.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/
randy-jorgensen-presented-special-award-from-president-lobo/. Accessed on June
28, 2011.
272 copinh, “Condenamos la llegada de Stephen Harper,” August 12, 2011. Available
online at: http://www.copinh.org/article/condenamos-la-llegada-de-stephen-
harper-primer-min/. Accessed on December 24, 2015.
Notes 309
273 Celso Alberto Guillén, Personal interview, Guadalupe, Honduras, June 22, 2011.
274 D. Paley, “Snowbirds Gone Wild! Canadian Retirees and Locals Clash in Honduras,”
Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin, November 4, 2010.
275 La Prensa, “Trujillo se queda sin otro proyecto turístico,” La Prensa, April 27, 2011.
Available online at: http://www.laprensa.hn/honduras/543822-97/trujillo-se-
queda-sin-otro-proyecto-turistico. Accessed on May 2, 2011.
276 D. Paley, “Snowbirds Gone Wild!”
277 La Tribuna, “Invertirán más $200 millones en el rubro turístico de Honduras,” La
Tribuna, September 27, 2011. Available online at: www.latribuna.hn. Accessed on
September 27, 2011.
278 N. Reeder, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Office of the Canadian Embassy, January
30, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01179.
279 Wimmer, “Canada-Honduras Commerical Relations”; D. Arsenault, Situational
Report, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy, June 30, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2010-01177; N. Reeder, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Canadian Embassy,
February 22, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2009-02141.
280 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Honduras Country Strategy Process 2006-
07, San José, Costa Rica: 2006, Access to Information, file A-2010-02422.
281 These meetings are discussed in communications between the embassy and Ottawa,
and the embassy and the Canadian companies. Interestingly, despite cida being an
aid agency, given that the embassy in San José, Costa Rica is credited to Honduras, the
head of cida often serves as a point person in Honduras for the embassy, including
remaining in contact and meeting with Canadian mining company representatives.
282 The quotation is from Wimmer, from the Latin American and Caribbean Commercial
Relations section of DFAIT, “Canada-Honduras Commerical Relations,” Ottawa:
Foreign Affairs and International Trade, November 10, 2010, Access to Information,
file A-2010-01177.
283 Wimmer, “Canada-Honduras Commerical Relations,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, November 10, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01177.
284 N. Reeder, “Re. Canadian Mining meetings,” communication between Canadian
embassy and Breakwater Resources, San José: Costa Rica, March 23, 2010, Access
285 B. Singleton, “draft letter from Amb Reeder to Bob Carreau, Breakwater Resources,”
communication between cida Ottawa and cida office in Tegucigalpa, Ottawa:
Foreign Affairs and International Trade, March 24, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2010-00532.
286 Name redacted, “Visit Ministry of Industry to Gildan,” communication between
Gildan and Canadian embassy, Choloma Cortés: Honduras, March 8, 2010, Access
287 S. Cuffe, “Canadian Aid, Honduran Oil: Ottawa funds set to encourage oil investment,”
The Media Co-op, March 12, 2014. Available online at: http://www.mediacoop.ca/
story/canadian-aid-honduran-oil/20987. Accessed on March 13, 2014.
288 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Honduras Country Strategy Process
2006–07.
289 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Honduras Country Strategy Process
2008–09.
290 La Tribuna, “Congreso elimina el contrato de Lothelsa,” La Tribuna, October 14,
2011. Available online at: www.latribuna.hn. Accessed on October 14, 2011; La
Tribuna, “Loterías tradicionales no desaparecerán,” La Tribuna, October 14, 2011.
Available online at: www.latribuna.hn. Accessed on October 14, 2011; Personal
Communication with Joanna Lostracco, Canadian Commerical Communication,
December 9, 2011. The ccc is an arms-length state agency that negotiates contracts
with and identifies Canadian investment or trade partners for governments of
countries primarily in the Global South.
291 N. Reeder, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Office of the Canadian Embassy, July
292 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Diplomatic Appointments,” Ottawa, August
12, 2010.
293 E. Wang, “Agenda—visit of Ambassador Mackay to Tegucigalpa,” San José: Canadian
Embassy, September 30, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01177.
294 Global Affairs Canada, “Canada-Central America Four (ca4) Free Trade
Negotiations.” Available online at: www.international.gc.ca. Accessed on January
10, 2012.
295 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Pursuing Free Trade Agreement
with Honduras,” Ottawa, February 11, 2011.
296 La Tribuna, “TLC con Canadá generará inversiones en sector minero,” La Tribuna,
February 8, 2011. Available online at: www.latribuna.hn. Accessed on February 8,
2011.
297 Canhuati quoted in Proceso, “Textilera canadiense proyecta invertir más de 100
millones de dólares en Honduras,” Proceso, February 4, 2011. Available online at:
http://www.proceso.hn/component/k2/item/56295.html. Accessed on February
4, 2011; La Tribuna, “Maquiladores hondureño respaldan TLC con Canadá,” La
Tribuna, February 2, 2011. Available online at: www.latribuna.hn. Accessed on
February 2, 2011; B. Marotte, “Gildan becomes global sock king with U.S. purchase,”
Globe and Mail, April 12, 2011, p. B5.
298 Prime Minister’s Office, “Prime Minister Harper Announces Conclusion of Free
Trade Negotiations with Honduras,” Ottawa, August 12, 2011.
299 copinh, “Condenamos la llegada de Stephen Harper.” www.copinh.org, (April 12,
2011), accessed April 12, 2011.
300 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Baird, Ablonczy React to Mali Coup
Attempt,” Ottawa, fait, March 21, 2012.
301 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Supports Suspending Mali from La
Francophonie,” Ottawa, fait, March 30, 2012; C. Clark, “Canada halts aid to Mali
after military coup,” Globe and Mail, March 24, 2012, p. A16.
302 N. Reeder, Situational Report, Tegucigalpa: Office of the Embassy, July 7, 2009. Oda
quoted in Clark, “Canada halts aid to Mali,” p. A4.
303 D. Frank, “Hernández’s Election was Built on Corruption: U.S. Support for Nation’s
New Leader is Misguided and Unethical,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 25, 2014.
Available online at: http://m.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/Frank-Hern-
ndez-s-election-was-built-on-5174987.php?cmpid=opedhphcat. Accessed on May
Notes 311
28, 2014.
304 Frank, “The Thugocracy Next Door”; D. Frank, “In Honduras, Military Takes Over
with U.S. Blessing,” Miami Herald, September 11, 2013. Available online at: http://
www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/10/3618867/in-honduras-military-takes-over.
html. Accessed on May 28, 2014.
305 E. Achtenberg, “In Post-Election Honduras, Challenges and Opportunities for the
Resistance,” nacla Report on the Americas, December 21, 2013. Available online
at: http://nacla.org/blog/2013/12/21/post-election-honduras-challenges-and-
opportunities-resistance. Accessed on May 28, 2014.
306 Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, “Canada Strengthens Ties
with Honduras,” News Release, January 14, 2014. Available online at: http://
www.international.gc.ca/media/state-etat/news-communiques/2014/01/24a.
aspx?lang=eng. Accessed on May 29, 2014.
307 E. Achtenberg, “Report from Honduras: How the Election Was Stolen,” nacla
Report on the Americas, December 9, 2013. Available online at: https://nacla.org/
blog/2013/12/9/report-honduras-how-election-was-stolen. Accessed on May 29,
2014
308 E. Achtenberg, “In Post-Election Honduras, Challenges and Opportunities for the
Resistance.”
309 E. Achtenberg, “Report from Honduras: How the Election Was Stolen.”
310 J. Johnston and S. Lefebvre, Honduras since the Coup: Economic and Social Outcomes,
Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research, November 2013. The
next few paragraphs on economic and social trends draw explicitly from this excellent
report.
311 Ibid., pp 1–2.
312 Ibid., p. 1.
313 Ibid., p. 9.
314 Ibid., p. 1.
315 Ibid., pp. 10–11.
316 Ibid., p. 1.
317 Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre.
318 C. Mcallister, “A Headlong Rush into the Future: Violence and Revolution in a
Guatemalan Indigenous Village,” in G. Grandin and G.M. Joseph, eds., A Century of
Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence During Latin America’s Long Cold
War, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011, p. 276.
319 LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, pp. 113–114.
320 Quoted in Ibid., p. 115.
321 Quoted in Ibid., p. 116.
322 J. Mahoney, The Legacies of Liberalism: Path Dependence and Political Regimes in Central
America. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2001, p. 212.
323 This paragraph draws heavily on LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, pp. 113–120.
324 G. Grandin, “Living in Revolutionary Time: Coming to Terms with the Violence of
Latin America’s Long Cold War,” in Grandin and Joseph, eds., A Century of Revolution,
p. 27.
325 Mcallister, “A Headlong Rush,” p. 277.
326 G. Grandin, The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation, Durham and
London: Duke University Press, 2000, p. 224.
327 S. Jonas, Of Centaurs and Doves: Guatemala’s Peace Process, Boulder: Westview Press,
2000, p. 23.
328 Ibid., p. 23.
329 Mcallister, “A Headlong Rush,” p. 279.
330 Ibid., p. 23.
331 Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre, p. 182.
332 D. Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists against Terror: Guatemala City, 1954–1985,
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
333 D.T. Levenson, Adiós Niño: The Gangs of Guatemala City and the Politics of Death,
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013, p. 2.
334 Grandin, The Blood of Guatemala, p. 224.
335 Levenson, Adiós Niño, pp. 32–33.
336 J. Dunkerley, Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of Modern Central America,
London: Verso, 1988, pp. 496–497.
337 Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre, p. 3.
338 W.I. Robinson, Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and
Globalization, London: Verso, 2003, p. 103.
339 Robinson, Transnational Conflicts, pp. 105–106.
340 Levenson, Adiós Niño, p. 39.
341 eiu, Guatemala: Country Report, London: Economist Intelligence Unit, June 2013,
p. 3.
343 A. Bird, “Drugs and Business: Central America Faces Another Round of Violence,”
nacla Report on the Americas, 45, 1, 2012, pp. 35–36; W.I. Robinson, “Latin America
in the New Global Capitalism,” nacla Report on the Americas, 45, 2, 2012.
344 Robinson, Transnational Conflicts, pp. 115–116.
345 eclac, Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2012, Santiago: Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2012, p. 117. Figures for 2011
are preliminary.
346 eclac, Anuario Estadístico 2012, Santiago: Economic Commision for Latin America
and the Caribbean, 2012, p. 65.
347 Ibid., p. 68.
348 Ibid., p. 70.
349 S.V. Yagenova, “Guatemala: Reflexiones sobre el ciclo actual de lucha popular en la
antesala del proceso electoral del 2011,” osal, 12, 29, May 2011, p. 214.
350 S.V. Yagenova, “Guatemala 2012: Reconfiguración autoritaria, movilización popular
y criminalización de las luchas,” osal, 14, 33, May 2013, p. 137.
351 eiu, Guatemala: Country Report, p. 2.
352 Ibid., p. 3.
353 Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Foreign Direct
Investment, 65. While this section focuses principally on the mining sector, it is
important to note too that Canadian oil companies have been expanding their
presence in the country as of late. For example, Calgary-based Quattro Exploration
Notes 313
and Production acquired just short of 350,000 hectares of oil concession in the
country in November 2011. See D. Paley, “The Spoils of an Undeclared War:
How Guatemala’s ‘War on Drugs’ is Being Used as a Front to Clear Land for Oil
Companies,” Briarpatch, July 1, 2012. Available online at: http://briarpatchmagazine.
com/articles/view/the-spoils-of-an-undeclared-war. Accessed on June 2, 2014.
354 Data was obtained via www.northernminer.org.
355 Goldcorp’s Marlin and Cerro Blanco mines are operated by subsidiaries Montana
Exploradora and Entre Mares, respectively.
356 M.L. Dougherty, “The Global Gold Mining Industry, Junior Firms, and Civil Society
Resistance in Guatemala,” Bulletin of Latin American Research, 30, 4, 2011, p. 9.
357 Ibid., p. 10.
358 Ibid., p. 10.
359 Ibid., pp. 9–11.
360 Canadian Institute for Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, “Guatemala Laws and
Regulations.” Available online at: www.cim.org. Accessed on May 18, 2012.
361 Dougherty, “The Global Gold Mining Industry, Junior Firms, and Civil Society
Resistance in Guatemala,” p. 11.
362 D. Valladares, “Guatemala: Mines Bring No Benefits to Local People,” Upside Down
World, July 24, 2009. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/
content/view/2012/68/. Accessed on August 1, 2009.
363 I. Bickis, “Guatemala proposes 40% stake in mining companies,” Northern Miner, July
16–22, 2012, p. 5; Mining Watch, “Guatemala’s Highest Court to Hear Landmark
Indigenous Challenge against Mining Law,” Mining Watch, July 20, 2012. Available
online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/guatemala-s-highest-court-hear-
landmark-indigenous-challenge-against-mining-law. Accessed on July 20, 2012;
Reuters, “Guatemala steps back from mining reform plans—adviser,” Reuters, August
7, 2012. Available online at: http://uk.reuters.com/article/guatemala-mining-urgent-
idUKL2E8J64W420120806. Accessed on August 9, 2012.
364 J. Lambert, “Minería en Canadá,” Prensa Libre, November 4, 2004. Available online
at: http://www.prensalibre.com/. Accessed on May 15, 2012. Translation from
Rosalind Gill for www.rightsaction.org, accessed May 15, 2012.
365 The National Mining Forum is discussed by Ambassador Lambert during a January
23, 2005 televised debate on the program “Libre Encuentro,” which can be viewed
with translation at: www.schnoorversuscanada.ca. Accessed May 15, 2012.
366 R. Collins, “Tahltan Chief Jerry Asp Removed from Office by Elders,” mac:
Mines and Communities, February 10, 2005. Available online at: http://www.
minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=1412. Accessed on May 15, 2012.
367 See, for example, Gordon, Imperialist Canada, chapter 2.
368 J. Lambert quoted in “Libre Encuentro,” January 23, 2005.
369 C. Luttman, “Meeting with mem new officials,” Guatemala City, Canadian Embassy,
February 11, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2010-02420.
370 Ibid. The pdac meetings are the largest mining industry gathering in the world.
371 Canadian Embassy, “Itinerario Final: Visita del Viceministro Estuardo Roldán y la
Delegación de Guatemala a Canadá,” Guatemala City, Canadian Embassy, February
372 C. Rojas-Arbulú, “Canadian participation in Guatemala’s Energy Sector,” Guatemala

City: Canadian Embassy, specific date unknown, 2005, Access to Information, file
A-2010-02417.
373 S. Yagenova and R. Garcia, “Indigenous People’s Struggles Against Transnational
Mining Companies in Guatemala: The Sipakapa People vs. GoldCorp Mining
Company,” Socialism and Democracy, 23, 3, 2009, p. 160.
374 P. Kent, “Notes for an Address by the Honourable Peter Kent, Minister of State
of Foreign Affairs (Americas), to the Inter-American Dialogue,” March 16, 2009,
Global Affairs Canada. Available online at: http://www.international.gc.ca/media/
state-etat/speeches-discours/2009/387072.aspx?lang=en. Accessed on February 3,
2010.
376 On Common Ground Consultants, Inc., Human Rights Assessment of Goldcorp’s
Marlin Mine, Executive Summary, May 2010, 12. Available online at: http://www.
hria-guatemala.com/en/MarlinHumanRights.htm. Accessed on May 20, 2012. While
the report is critical of Goldcorp and its predecessor, it accepts as its premise—not
surprisingly, given it was commissioned by Goldcorp—the company’s legitimacy, and
the industry’s more broadly, as a “stakeholder” in developmental questions effecting
indigenous communities in Guatemala, even when it acknowledges consultation was
inadequate.
378 N. Basu and H. Hu, “Toxic metals and indigenous peoples near the Marlin mine in
western Guatemala,” Technical Report for Physicians for Human Rights, May 2010,
cited in J. Van de Wauw, R. Evens and L. Machiels, “Are groundwater overextraction
and reduced infiltration contributing to arsenic related health problems near the
Marlin mine?” October 14, 2010. Available online at: https://www.researchgate.
net/publication/266274045_Are_Groundwater_overextraction_and_reduced_
infiltration_contributing_to_Arsenic_related_health_problems_near_the_
Marlin_mine_Guatemala. Accessed on May 2, 2012. See also Physicians for Human
Rights, Press Release, May 18, 2010. Available online at: //physiciansforhumanrights.
org. Accessed on May 20, 2010.
379 Wauw, Evens and Machiels, “Are groundwater overextraction and reduced
infiltration contributing to arsenic related health problems near the Marlin mine?”
October 14, 2010, pp. 1, 3. Available online at: https://www.researchgate.net/
publication/266274045_Are_Groundwater_overextraction_and_reduced_
infiltration_contributing_to_Arsenic_related_health_problems_near_the_
Marlin_mine_Guatemala. Accessed on May 2, 2012.
380 R. Llewellyn, “Gold flows as the wells run dry,” Le Monde Diplomatique, English
edition, April 25, 2012. Available online at: http://mondediplo.com/blogs/gold-
flows-as-the-wells-run-dry. Accessed on April 25, 2012.
381 G. Russell, “Even the Cows are Being Killed By Goldcorp’s Mine in Guatemala,”
Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin, February 4, 2011.
382 L. Zarsky and L. Stanley, “Searching for Gold in the Highlands of Guatemala:
Notes 315
Economic Benefits and Environmental Risks of the Marlin Mine,” Global

Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, September 2011.
383 Lewellyn, “Gold flows as the wells run dry.”
Resistance in Guatemala,” pp. 7–8; A. Ramírez, “The Minister Takes Legal
Action Against Montana,” October 4, 2010, Prensa Libre. Available online at:
http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/justicia/Ministro-presenta-accion-legal-
Montana_0_347365300.html. Accessed on October 20, 2010, translated by Rosalind
Gill for Rights Action. Available online at: https://goldcorpoutnews.wordpress.
com/2010/10/01/the-minister-takes-legal-action-against-montana/; M. Rey Rosa,
“Montana Lied!” Prensa Libre, October 1, 2010, translated by Rosalind Gill for Rights
Action. Available online at: https://goldcorpoutnews.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/
montana-lied/. Access on December 14, 2015.
385 International Labour Conference, Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application
of Conventions and Recommendations, International Labour Office, 99th Session, 2010,
p. 770.
386 M. Mittelstaedt, “Goldcorp mine in Guatemala ordered to shut,” Globe and Mail, June
8, 2010, p. B16. iachr quoted in Rights Action, “Government of Guatemala Ordered
to Suspend Goldcorp’s Marlin Gold Mine Operation,” Rights Action, Electronic
Bulletin, June 1, 2010.
387 Personal interview, Sacmuj, Guatemala, July 13, 2012.
388 Goldcorp, “Goldcorp Reports Action Regarding Marlin Mine,” June 9, 2010. Available
online at: http://www.goldcorp.com/English/Investor-Resources/News/News-
Details/2010/Goldcorp-Reports-Action-Regarding-Marlin-Mine1122161/default.
aspx. Accessed on June 15, 2010.
389 Nasdaq, “Goldcorp Guatemalan Mine Restrictions Modified by iachr; Goldcorp
Gratified by Announcement,” Nasdaq, December 19, 2011. Available online at:
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/goldcorp-guatemalan-mine-restrictions-modified-
by-iachr-goldcorp-gratified-by-announcement-cm109730. Accessed on December
19, 2011.
390 Moore quoted in Mining Watch, “A Wake-up Call for Human Rights Defenders in the
Americas, Not Indicator of Goldcorp’s Performance,” Mining Watch, January 5, 2012.
Available online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/human-rights-commissions-
climbdown-wake-call-human-rights-defenders-americas-not-indicator. Accessed on
January 6, 2012.
391 A. Bugailiskis, “Follow up on Your Meeting with DG Jamie Lambert,” Ottawa,
Foreign Affairs and International Trade, June 29, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2010-02408.
392 L. McKechnie, “RE: MINING/GUATEMALA/HUMAN RIGHTS: Goldcorp’s
Marlin mine at centre of a human rights battle over licensing process,” Guatemala
City: Canadian Embassy, June 9, 2010, Access to Information file, A-2012-00366.
393 J. Marder, subject header redacted, Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
June 14, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2012-00366. The quotes are from a
“Meeting Note” for Van Loan, the date and author for which are not indicated, Access
394 K. Patterson, subject header redacted, Washington: Canada’s Permanent Mission to

the oas, June 14, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2012-00366; A. Bugailiskis,
“Follow up On Your Meeting with DG Jamie Lambert,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, June 29, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2012-00366.
395 J. Buss, “omint Request: Letter to mint’s Guatemalan counterpart,” Ottawa:
Foreign Affairs and International Trade, June 18, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2010-02408.
396 S. Moffett, “Recontre avec Goldcorp—24 juin—Guatemala,” Guatemala City:
Embassy, June 24, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-02408.
397 Both quotes are from an email string between embassy staff and fait officials in
Ottawa from July 9–13, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2012-00366.
398 L. Dalby, “RE: Marlin Mine,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, October
399 S. Moffett, “Plainte à l’iachr contre le gouvernement du Guatemala,” Guatemala City:
Canadian Embassy, October 13, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2012-00366.
400 S. Moffett, subject header redacted, Guatemala City: Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, October 26, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2012-00366.
401 D. Janoff, “Meeting with Goldcorp V.P. David Deisley,” Washington: Canada’s
Permanent Mission to the oas, November 15, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2012-00366; L. Dalby, “Update—Goldcorp status please,” Ottawa: Foreign
Affairs and International Trade, November 1, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2012-00366.
402 Cristiani quoted in Mining Watch, “Canadian Parliamentarians Meet with Guatemalan
Legislators on Goldcorp’s Ticket,” Mining Watch, September 11, 2012. Available
online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/canadian-parliamentarians-meet-
guatemalan-legislators-goldcorp-s-ticket. Accessed on September 13, 2012.
403 The Hill and Knowlton letter and Bergeron’s testimony are both quoted in Mining
Watch, “Goldcorp organizes junket for Canadian parliamentarians to Guatemala,”
Mining Watch, August 28, 2012. Available online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/
news/goldcorp-organizes-junket-guatemala-canadian-parliamentarians. Accessed
on August 28, 2012.
404 D. Valladares, “Goldcorp Mining Project in Guatemala Faces Cross Border
Opposition,” Upside Down World, April 6, 2010. Available online at: http://
upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/2435-goldcorp-mining-project-
in-guatemala-faces-cross-border-opposition. Accessed on April 8, 2010.
405 inco’s exmibal is actually identified in the Guatemalan truth and reconciliation
report in a case study of an assassination. Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico,
Guatemala Memoria del Silencio, Tomo VI, Casos ilustrativos, Anexo 1, Guatemala:
United Nations, 1999, pp. 99–104. Thank you to Graham Russell for pointing this
out to us.
406 S. Fitzpatrick Behrens, “Nickel for Your Life: Q’eqchi’ Communities Take on
Mining Companies in Guatemala,” nacla Report on the Americas, October 25, 2009.
Available online at: https://nacla.org/news/nickel-your-life-qeqchi-communities-
take-mining-companies-guatemala. Accessed on November 1, 2009; Rights Action,
“Hudbay Minerals Linked to One and Possibly Two Deadly Shootings On September
Notes 317
27 and 28,” Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin, September 28, 2009.

407 Choc V. Hudbay Minerals, “Hudbay Minerals Sells Nickel Mine in Guatemala,”
August 9, 2011. Available online at: http://www.chocversushudbay.com/. Accessed
on August 10, 2011.
408 C. Jamasmie, “Guatemala’s Escobal Mine to Become One of the Top Silver Projects
in the World,” Mining, May 24, 2012. Available online at: http://www.mining.com/
guatemalas-el-escobal-mine-to-become-one-of-the-top-silver-projects-in-the-world-
report/. Accessed on May 24, 2012.
409 J. Rodriguez, “Goldcorp’s Legacy: Criminalization and Mining Resistance in San
Rafael las Flores, Guatemala,” Upside Down World, April 25, 2012. Available online
at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3595-goldcorps-
legacy-criminalization-and-mining-resistance-in-san-rafael-las-flores-guatemala.
Accessed on April 26, 2012.
410 It was sold to Nevada-based Kappes, Cassiday & Associates in August 2012.
411 Prensa Libre, “San José del Golfo Villagers Detain Mining Personnel,” Prensa Libre,
translated by Rosalind Gill for Rights Action, Rights Action Electronic Bulletin, April
10, 2012.
412 Prensa Libre, “Community Members Call for Closure of Gold and Silver Mine,”
Prensa Libre, translated by Rosalind Gill for Rights Action, Rights Action Electronic
Bulletin, March 9, 2012.
413 D, Paley, “Guatemala: Peaceful Resistance in the Face of Violence,” Upside Down
World, October 24, 2012. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/
guatemala-archives-33/3934-guatemala-peaceful-resistance-in-the-face-of-violence.
Accessed on August 10, 2013.
414 Personal interview, San José del Golfo, Guatemala, July 8, 2012.
415 Ibid.
416 S.V. Yagenova, “Guatemala 2012: Reconfiguración autoritaria, movilización popular
y criminalización de las luchas,” osal, 14, 33, 2013, pp. 135–149.
417 Ibid., p. 137.
418 R. Zibechi, “Guatemala: Resisting the New Colonialism—An Interview with
Mario Godínez,” Americas Program, July 18, 2011. Available online at: http://www.
cipamericas.org/archives/5136. Accessed on August 12, 2013.
419 S.V. Yagenova, “Guatemala: Reflexiones sobre el ciclo actual de lucha popular en la
antesala del proceso electoral del 2011,” osal, 12, 29, 2011, pp. 215–216.
420 Yagenova, “Guatemala 2012,” p. 140.
421 D. Paley, “Nueva Esperanza,” Canadian Dimension, August 1, 2012. Available online
at: http://canadiandimension.com/articles/4863. Accessed on August 15, 2013.
422 Quoted in Raúl Zibechi, “Guatemala: Resisting the New Colonialism.”
423 T. Sosa, “Implicaciones socio-ambientales de la minería en Centroamérica,” América
Latina en Movimiento, 37, II, March 2012, p. 19.
424 Yagenova, “Guatemala 2012,” p. 142.
425 S. Granovsky-Larsen, “Timeline: The Return of the Guatemalan Military,” Briarpatch,
July 1, 2012. Available online at: http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/the-
spoils-of-an-undeclared-war. Accessed on August 19, 2013. For more background
on agrarian conflicts in neoliberal Guatemala see S. Granovsky-Larsen, “Between the
Bullet and the Bank: Agrarian Conflict and Access to Land in Neoliberal Guatemala,”
Journal of Peasant Studies, 40, 2, 2013, pp. 325–350.
426 Zibechi, “Guatemala: Resisting the New Colonialism.”
427 For reasons of space, this chapter limits its focus to Guatemalan resistance centred
on Canadian mining imperialism. One other area that deserves more attention is
that of migrant worker protests. Approximately 4,000 Guatemalans work in Canada’s
agricultural sector each year, facing extremely exploitative working conditions. In one
inspiring sign of resistance among many, there was a march of temporary migrant
workers and their allies to the Canadian embassy in Guatemala City on September
1, 2010 to protest their working conditions, the violation of their limited rights by
employers, and the systematic failure of the Canadian government to address those
violations. See United Food and Commerical Workers, “Migrant Workers Protest
at Canada’s Embassy in Guatemala,” Market Wired, September 1, 2010. Available
online at: http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/migrant-workers-protest-
at-canadas-embassy-in-guatemala-1312972.htm. Accessed on September 2, 2010.
428 Prensa Libre, “Disputa minera militariza región en San Rafael Las Flores,” Prensa
Libre, June 1, 2013. Available online at: http://www.prensalibre.com/noticias/
comunitario/Disputa-militariza-San-Rafael-Flores_0_929907247.html. Accessed
on July 15, 2013.
429 Sandra Cuffe, “State of Siege: Mining Conflict Escalates in Guatemala,” Upside
Down World, May 2, 2013. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/
guatemala-archives-33/4270-state-of-siege-mining-conflict-escalates-in-guatemala.
Accessed on July 10, 2013.
430 Ibid.
431 Personal interview, San Rafael las Flores, Santa Rosa, Guatemala, July 9, 2012.
432 Prensa Libre, “Disputa minera militariza región.”
433 Rodriguez, “Goldcorp’s Legacy.”
434 Quotation in Cuffe, “State of Siege.”
435 S. Yagenova and R. Garcia, “Indigenous People’s Struggles Against Transnational
Mining Companies in Guatemala: The Sipakapa People vs. GoldCorp Mining
Company,” Socialism and Democracy, 23, 3, 2009, p. 158.
436 Ibid., p. 157.
437 Ibid., p. 158.
438 L. Urkidi, “The Defence of Community in the Anti-Mining Movement of Guatemala,”
Journal of Agrarian Change, 11, 4, 2011, pp. 567–568.
439 Yagenova and Garcia, “Indigenous People’s Struggles Against Transnational Mining
Companies in Guatemala,” p. 161.
440 K. Patterson, “Open Veins: Conflicts Erupting around the World over Canadian
Mines,” Ottawa Citizen, October 1, 2005; W. Stueck, “Clashes reported in Guatemala
over Glamis mining project,” Globe and Mail, January 13, 2005, p. B14.
441 Rights Action, “Goldcorp 7,” Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin, June 19, 2009.
442 Rights Action, “Trial of ‘Goldcorp 7’ Begins Monday, November 12,” Rights
Action, Electronic Bulletin, November 10, 2007; Intercontinental Cry,
“Goldcorp Seven Verdict is in… Justice in Guatemala?” Intercontinental Cry,
December 17, 2007. Available online at: http://intercontinentalcry.org/
Notes 319
goldcorp-7-verdict-is-injustice-in-guatemala/. Accessed on January 12, 2008.

443 Urkidi, “The Defence of Community,” p. 569.
444 Yagenova and Garcia, “Indigenous People’s Struggles Against Transnational Mining
Companies in Guatemala,” pp. 163–164.
446 Personal interview, Sacmuj, Guatemala, July 13, 2012.
448 A. Hoffman, “Goldcorp bested by Mayan mother,” Globe and Mail, July 10, 2008,
p. B1; Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Secretary of State Guergis to Visit
Belize and Guatemala,” July 10, 2008, Global Affairs Canada. Available online at:
//w01.international.gc.ca/MinPub/Publication.asp?Language=E&publication_
id=386372&docnumber=159. Accessed on July 10, 2008.
449 Rights Action, “After Goldcorp illegal tried to take control of more lands, Maya
Mam people of San Miguel Ixtahuacan are threatened with more ‘criminalizatin’and
repression,” Rights Actions, Electronic Bulletin, June 12, 2009.
450 Rights Action, “Another Possible Attempt against 4 Community Leaders of San
Miguel Ixtahuacan,” Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin, August 9, 2009.
451 Rights Action, “Shooting of Mayan Woman Linked to Goldcorp’s Mine in Guatemala,”
Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin, July 10, 2010.
452 G. Russell, “Goldcorp in Guatemala: Despite the Despites, the Struggle for Human
Rights and the Environment Continues,” Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin,
September 22, 2010. In addition to opposition to Marlin, Goldcorp has been targeted
by anti-mining marches at its Cerro Blanco mine. See Valladares, “Goldcorp Mining
Project in Guatemala Faces Cross Border Opposition.”
453 Personal interview, San José Nueva Esperanza, Guatemala, July 13, 2012.
454 G. Russell, “Gang Rapes, Forced Evictions and the Endless Nightmare of Nickel
Mining in Guatemala,” Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin, May 27, 2010.
455 D. Balkissoon, “Canadian Ambassador guilty of slander,” Toronto Star, June 17,
2010. Available online at: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/824518--former-
canadian-ambassador-guilty-of-slander. Accessed on May 1, 2012. The judge is
quoted in R. Olivera, “Cook feels the heat,” New Internationalist, September 1, 2010.
Available online at: http://newint.org/columns/currents/2010/09/01/cook-
canadian-ambassador-guatemala/. Accessed on September 8, 2010.
456 Rights Action, “Mining and the Death of a Mayan Teacher,” Rights Action, Electronic
Bulletin, October 18, 2009; G. Russell, “The Second Killing of Pablo Bac,” Rights
Action, Electronic Bulletin, April 14, 2010.
457 Behrens, “Nickel For Your Life.”
458 Mining Watch, “Award Winning Mining Company Being Sued for Violent Death of
Community Leader,” Mining Watch, December 2, 2010. Available online at: http://
www.miningwatch.ca/news/award-winning-mining-company-being-sued-violent-
death-community-leader-industry-out-step-canadi. Accessed on May 16, 2012.
459 Indian Law Resource Center “Guatemala Court Makes Landmark Ruling in
Indigenous Rights Case,” February 8, 2011. Available online at: http://indianlaw.org/
content/guatemala-court-makes-landmark-ruling-indigenous-rights-case. Accessed
on April 21, 2011.
460 See Choc V. Hudbay, May 22, 2012. Available online at: www.chocversushudbay.
com. Accessed on May 22, 2012.
Resistance in Guatemala,” p. 3; Llewellyn, “Gold flows as the wells run dry.”
462 Llewellyn, “Gold flows as the wells run dry.”
463 International Labour Organization, C169 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Convention,
1989. Available online at: http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXP
UB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C169. Accessed on December 24, 2015.
464 Quoted in Urkidi, “The Defence of Community,” p. 573.
465 A. Koehl, “Billions, Millions, and the Peasant,” Mining Watch, January 18, 2006.
Available online at: www.miningwatch.ca/index.php?/Glamis_Gold/Koehl_
billions. Accessed on July 10, 2007; K. Patterson, “Canadian Mine Strikes Lode of
Unrest,” Ottawa Citizen, April 26, 2005, p. C3.
466 International Labour Conference, Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application
of Conventions and Recommendations (International Labour Office: 98th Session,
2009), 680.
467 Personal interview, San Rafael las Flores, Santa Rosa, Guatemala, July 9, 2012.
468 For one important historical contextualization, see J. Dunkerley, The Long War,
London: Verso, 1982.
469 S. Wolf, “Subverting Democracy: Elite Rule and the Limits to Political Participation
in Post-War El Salvador,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 41, 3, 2009, pp. 430,
444–445; A.C. Holland, “Right on Crime? Conservative Party Politics and Mano
Dura Policies in El Salvador,” Latin American Research Review, 48, 1, 2013, pp. 44–67.
470 Wolf, “Subverting Democracy”; D. Albiac, “Los ricos de El Salvador,” Estudios
Centroamericanos, Vol. 612, 1999, pp. 841–64; C. Paniagua, “El bloque empresarial
hegemónico salvadoreño,” Estudios Centroamericanos, Vol. 645–646, 2002, pp.
609–93.
471 Wolf, “Subverting Democracy,” p. 430.
472 B. Bull, “Diversified Business Groups and the Transnationalisation of the Salvadorean
Economy,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 45, 2, 2013, pp. 265–295.
473 R.J. Spalding, “Civil Society Engagement in Trade Negotiations: cafta Opposition
Movements in El Salvador,” Latin American Politics and Society, 49, 4, 2007, pp.
85–114.
475 Dalby, “Canada-El Salvador Commercial Relations,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, February 2001, Access to Information, file A-2011-02152.
476 I. Pérez, “Organizaciones sociales piden la salida immediata de Pacific Rim,”
La Página, July 22, 2010. Available online at: http://www.lapagina.com.sv/
nacionales/36319/2010/07/22/Organizaciones-sociales-piden-la-salida-inmediata-
de-Pacific-Rim. Accessed on July 27, 2010; T. Sosa, “Implicaciones socio-ambientales
de la minería en Centroamérica,” América Latina en Movimiento, March 2012, pp.
19–20.
477 Comunicado de Amigos de la Tierra, “Transnacionales cometen crímenes
ecológicos,” La Jornada, November 20, 2012. Available online at: http://www.
Notes 321
jornada.unam.mx/2012/11/20/sociedad/037n2soc. Accessed on August 1,

2013; Alerta Minera, “Expertos y colectivos socials reflexionan sobre el agua y los
impactos de la minería del oro.” Available online at: http://www.conflictosmineros.
net/contenidos/14-el-salvador/13058-expertos-y-colectivos-sociales-reflexionan-
sobre-el-agua-y-los-impactos-de-la-mineria-del-oro. Accessed on August 1,
2013; Voces, “Antimineros de todo el mundo debatieron sobre la defense del
agua en El Salvador.” Available online at: http://www.conflictosmineros.net/
contenidos/14-el-salvador/13061-antimineros-de-todo-el-mundo-debateiron-
sobre-la-defensa-del-agua-en-el-salvador. Accessed on August 1, 2013.
478 G. Zucker, “El Salvador: Mining the Resistance,” Monthly Review, 62, 2, June 2010,
p. 41; K. Lydersen and J. Wallach, “Is Free Trade a Gold Mine?” The Progressive, July
2010. Available online at: http://progressive.org/news/2010/07/145875/free-
trade-gold-mine. Accessed on July 29, 2010.
479 R. Broad and J. Cavanagh, “Like Water for Gold in El Salvador,” The Nation, July
11, 2011. Available online at: http://www.thenation.com/article/water-gold-el-
salvador/. Accessed on July 19, 2011.
480 Lydersen and J. Wallach, “Is Free Trade a Gold Mine?”
481 E. Ayala, “Most Water-Stressed Country in Central America,” Inter Press Service,
December 9, 2010. Available online at: http://www.ipsnews.net/2010/12/
el-salvador-most-water-stressed-country-in-central-america/. Accessed on December
16, 2010; R. Cavooris, “Obama’s Final Stopover: Ignoring cafta Protests in San
Salvador,” Council on Hemispheric Affairs, March 23, 2011. Available online at:
http://www.coha.org/obama%E2%80%99s-final-stopover-ignoring-cafta-protests-
in-san-salvador/comment-page-1/. Accessed on April 14, 2011.
482 Zucker, “El Salvador: Mining the Resistance,” pp. 42–47; Z. Dyer, “El Salvador Faces
cafta Suit Over Mine Project,” nacla Report on the Americas, February 6, 2009.
Available online at: https://nacla.org/news/el-salvador-faces-cafta-suit-over-mine-
project. Accessed on February 13, 2009; J. Wallach, “Pacific Rim Silent in Wake of
Violence against Anti-Mining Protesters in Cabañas, El Salvador,” Upside Down World,
August 5, 2009. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/
view/2037/1. Accessed on August 6, 2009.
483 Zucker, “El Salvador: Mining the Resistance,” p. 42; Wallach, “Pacific Rim Silent in
Wake of Violence Against Anti-Mining Protesters.”
484 Council of Canadians, Common Frontiers, MiningWatch Canada, “Murder in El
Salvador Calls Canadian Mining Interests into Question,” Communiqué. Available
online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/murder-el-salvador-calls-canadian-
mining-interests-question. Accessed on August 1, 2013; Jennifer Moore, “Corporate
Rights Over Human Rights: Canadian Mining in Central America,” Discussion paper
prepared for a public event hosted by Territorio Libre: Canada’s Dirty Gold Rush in
Central America, University of Ottawa, January 12, 2011. Available online at: http://
www.miningwatch.ca/article/corporate-rights-over-human-rights-canadian-mining-
central-america. Accessed on August 1, 2013.
485 Radio Mundo Real, “Testimonio del padre Neftalí Ruíz sobre la Resistencia a la
minería en Cabañas.” Available online at: http://www.conflictosmineros.net/
contenidos/14-el-salvador/11658-testimonio-del-padre-neftali-ruiz-sobre-la-
resistencia-a-la-mineria-en-cabanas. Accessed on August 1, 2013; La Mesa Nacional

frente a la Minería Metálica de El Salvador, “Asesinato de ambientalista sin esclarecer
y la megaminería en pie,” Communiqué, June 17, 2012. Available online at: http://
www.conflictosmineros.net/contenidos/14-el-salvador/10307-asesinato-de-
ambientalista-sin-esclarecer-y-la-megamineria-en-pie. Accessed on August 1, 2013.
486 Collins, “The Failure of Socially Responsive Gold Mining,” Journal of Business Ethics,
88, 2009, p. 262.
487 Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), “CISPES Action
Alert,” January 31, 2011. Available online at: www.cispes.org. Accessed on February 3,
2011; D. Mackey and T. Simon, “Threats and Violence Continue against Salvadoran
Environmentalists,” Upside Down World, January 26, 2012. Available online at: http://
upsidedownworld.org/main/el-salvador-archives-74/3428-threats-and-violence-
continue-against-salvadoran-environmentalists. Accessed on August 1, 2013.
488 Quoted in El Diario, “El Salvador y las agresiones a la lucha antiminera,” El Diario,
July 23, 2013. Available online at: http://www.eldiario.es/desalambre/minería-
manifestaciones-El_Salvador-represion_0_156784975.html. Accessed on August
1, 2013.
489 Lydersen and Wallach, “Is Free Trade a Gold Mine?”
490 Colectivo de Derechos Humanos, “A Canadian Mining Company Making a Killing
in El Salvador … Again,” Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin, December 23, 2009;
G. Montalvo, “Fallen Anti-Mining Activists Honored With Vigil,” Upside Down
World, January 14, 2010. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/
el-salvador-archives-74/2314-solidarity-with-environmentalists-killed-in-el-
salvador. Accessed on January 14, 2010.
491 Globe and Mail, “Pacific Rim arbitration on El Salvador mine begins,” Globe and Mail,
June 1, 2010, p. B10. The case was heard at the International Center for the Settlement
of Investment Disputes in Washington, D.C. See also, HispanTV, “Denuncian agresión
económica contra El Salvador por transnacional canadiense.” Available online at:
http://www.conflictosmineros.net/contenidos/14-el-salvador/12655-denuncian-
agresion-economica-contra-el-salvador-por-transnacional-canadiense. Accessed on
August 2, 2013; Gloria Moronta, “La minera Pacific Rim demanda 315 millones de
dólares al Estado salvadoreño,” Conflictos Mineros, April 4, 2013. Available online at:
http://www.conflictosmineros.net/contenidos/14-el-salvador/12656-la-minera-
pacific-rim-demanda-315-millones-de-dolares-al-estado-salvadoreno. Accessed on
August 2, 2013.
492 Reuters, “Canadian miner’s complaint can proceed under El Salvador law,” Reuters,
June 2, 2012. Available online at: http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-pacificrimmining-
idUKBRE8510FY20120602. Accessed on June 2, 2012.
493 Contrapunto, “Organizaciones reaccionan ante demanda Pacific Rim,” Conflictos
Mineros, April 4, 2013. Available online at: http://www.conflictosmineros.net/
contenidos/14-el-salvador/12660-organizaciones-reaccionan-ante-demanda-pacific-
rim. Accessed on August 2, 2013.
494 Quoted in ibid.
495 “Lanzan en El Salvador Movimiento Mesoamericano contra la Minería Metálica
(M4),” Conflictos Mineros, April 25, 2013. Available online at: http://www.
Notes 323
conflictosmineros.net/contenidos/14-el-salvador/10034-lanzan-en-el-salvador-
movimiento-mesoamericano-contra-la-mineria-m4. Accessed on August 1, 2013.
496 Wolf, “Subverting Democracy,” pp. 447–450.
497 H. Perla Jr. and H. Cruz-Feliciano, “The Twenty-First Century Left in El Salvador and
Nicaragua: Understanding Apparent Contradictions and Criticisms,” Latin American
Perspectives, 40, 3, 2013, p. 84.
498 La Mesa Nacional frente a la Minería Metálica de El Salvador, “Comunidades y
organizaciones rechazan resolución emitida por asesinatos de ambientalistas,”
Communiqué, April 26, 2012. Available online at: http://www.conflictosmineros.
net/contenidos/14-el-salvador/10038-comunidades-y-organizaciones-rechazan-
emitida-por-asesinatos-de-ambientalistas. Accessed on August 1, 2013.
499 J. Wallach, “Another Anti-Mining Activist Shot in Cabañas El Salvador, Hitman Tied
to Pacific Rim is Detained,” Upside Down World, August 13, 2009. Available online
at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/el-salvador-archives-74/2049-another-
anti-mining-activist-shot-in-cabael-salvador-hitman-tied-to-pacific-rim-is-detained.
500 A. Bebbington, “Underground Political Ecologies: The Second Annual Lecture of
the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group of the Association of American
Geographers,” Geoforum, 43, 2012, p. 1154.
501 M. Hill, “El Salvador intends total ban on mining,” Mining Weekly, August 6,
2010. Available online at: http://www.miningweekly.com/article/el-salvador-
intends-total-ban-on-mining---report-2010-08-06. Accessed on August 12, 2010;
E. Achtenberg, “El Salvador: Funes Opposes Mining, But Legal Ban Uncertain,”
nacla Report on the Americas, July 8, 2011. Available online at: https://nacla.org/
blog/2011/7/8/el-salvador-funes-opposes-mining-legal-ban-uncertain. Accessed
on July 11, 2011.
502 América Economía, “ong salvadoreña insiste ante Parlamento que apruebe
una ley contra la minería,” América Economía, July 23, 2013. Available online at:
http://americaeconomia.com/negocios-industrias/ong-salvadorena-insiste-ante-
parlamento-que-apruebe-una-ley-contra-la-mineria. Accessed on August 1, 2013.
503 Periódico Correo, “Exigen salvadoreños prohibir explotación minera,” America
Latina en Movimiento, July 22, 2013. Available online at: http://alainet.org/
active/61024&lang=es. Accessed on August 1, 2013.
504 Contra Punto, “PDDH, minería no viable en El Salvador, ” Contra Punto, October
15, 2012. Available online at: http://www.contrapunto.com.sv/ambiente/pddh-
mineria-no-viable-en-el-salvador. Accessed on August 1, 2013.
505 Author’s name redacted, “Your questions regarding our requested meeting,” January
14, 2011, Access to Information file, A-2011-02152. The source is redacted but the
letter is sent to persons in the embassy.
506 R. Calderon, “Mining in El Salvador, an update,” San Salvador: Canadian Embassy,
no date provided, Access to Information, file A-2011-02152. A visit from an “expert”
on cyanide had been originally planned in 2009, but, according to a letter mining
company representative the embassy cancelled the trip. The embassy reports that
the timing of the visit was not good given the recent assassinations.
507 R. Calderon, “solicitud entrevista sobre minería,” San Salvador: Canadian Embassy,
March 4, 2011, Access to Information, file A-2011-02152.

508 R. Shaw-Wood, “Re. Mining in El Salvador, an update,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, February 7, 2011, Access to Information, file A-2011-02152.
509 G. L. Vunderlink, “Peasant Participation and Mobilization During Economic Crisis:
The Case of Costa Rica,” Studies in Comparative International Development, 25, 4,
1990, pp. 3–4; C. Mesa-Lago, Market, Socialist, and Mixed Economies: Comparative
Policy and Performance in Chile, Cuba, and Costa Rica, Baltimore: The John Hopkins
University Press, 2001; J. Mahoney, The Legacies of Liberalism: Path Dependence and
Political Regimes in Central America, Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press,
2002.
510 W.I. Robinson, “Transnational Processes, Development Studies and Changing
Social Hierarchies in the World System: A Central American Case Study,” Third
World Quarterly, 22, 4, 2001, pp. 529–563; Vunderlink, “Peasant Participation and
Mobilization,” p. 4; Thomas Marois, “From Economic Crisis to a ‘State’ of Crisis?
The Emergence of Neoliberalism in Costa Rica,” Historical Materialism, 13, 3, 2005,
pp. 101–134.
511 D. Sánchez Ancochea, “Domestic Capital, Civil Servants and the State: Costa Rica
and the Dominican Republic under Globalisation,” Journal of Latin American Studies,
37, 4, 2005, pp. 697, 702.
512 S. Mora Solano, “Diez años de acciones colectivas en Costa Rica,” Revista
Centroamericana de Ciencias Sociales, 5, 1, 2008, p. 140.
513 P. Almeida, “Subnational Opposition to Globalization,” Social Forces, 90, 4, 2012, pp.
1051–1072; E. Frajman, “Information and Values in Popular Protests: Costa Rica in
2000,” Bulletin of Latin American Research, 28, 1, 2009, pp. 44–62.
514 E. Frajman, “The People, Not the Movement: Opposition to cafta in Costa Rica,
2002–2007,” Latin American Perspectives, 39, 6, 2012, p. 117.
515 C. Wimmer, untitled brief, July 28, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01630.
516 El País, “Fiebre del oro amenaza aguas en cerro de Abangares, Guanacaste,” El País,
September 16, 2011. Available online at: http://www.elpais.cr/frontend/noticia_
detalle/1/53259. Accessed on August 7, 2013; Northern Miner, “Lyon Link Drills
Costa Rican Play,” Northern Miner, June 9, 1997. Available online at: http://www.
northernminer.com/news/lyon-lake-drills-costa-rica-play/1000098762/. Accessed
on August 7, 2013.
517 El País, “ong ambientalista estudia daños causados por minera canadiense en
Crucitas,” El País, January 16, 2012. Available online at: http//www.elpais.cr/
frontend/noticia_detalle/1/60931. Accessed on August 7, 2013; “Abogados
ambientalistas solicitan ejecutar sentencia minera Crucitas,” El País, December 23,
2011. Available online at: http://www.elpais.cr/frontend/noticia_detalle/1/59872.
518 BN Americas, “Government’s hands tied over Las Crucitas gold project,” BN
Americas, August 17, 2004. Available online at: http://www.bnamericas.com/en/
news/mining/Govt’s_hands_tied_over_Las_Crucitas_gold_project. Accessed on
November 23, 2010.
519 Mining Watch, “Vannessa Ventures drops defamation charge against Costa Rican
environmentalist,” Mining Watch, October 26, 2006. Available online at: http://
Notes 325
www.miningwatch.ca/vannessa-ventures-drops-defamation-charges-against-costa-
rican-environmentalist. Accessed on August 6, 2012; Mining Watch, “Costa Rican
constitutional court upholds cancellation of Crucitas gold mining permit,” Mining
Watch, December 6, 2006. Available online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/costa-
rican-constitutional-court-upholds-cancellation-crucitas-gold-mining-permit.
Accessed on August 6, 2012; A. Vaccoro, “Infinito Gold looks to unlock Costa Rica’s
mining potential,” Northern Miner, October 13, 2008. Available online at: http://
www.northernminer.com/news/infinito-gold-looks-to-unlock-costa-rica-s-mining-
potential/1000224005/. Accessed on August 6, 2012.
520 E. Wang and L. Dalby, “Crucitas Gold Mining Project,” San José: Canadian Embassy
and Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, date unknown, Access to
521 Rema, “Asegura Canadá que minera en Costa Rica cumplió requisitos,” Rema, August
9, 2010. Available online at: http://rema.codigosur.net/leer.php/4941356.html.
522 J. Rodriguez, “Costa Rica/Nicaragua/Honduas Pol-Econ Report—30 Apr to 18
May, 2010,” May 19, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01630; C. Wimmer,
untitled brief, April 23, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01630.
523 Latin America Press, “Lawmakers ban open-pit mining,” Latin America Press,
November 24, 2010. Available online at: http://lapress.org/articles.asp?art=6269.
Accessed on December 4, 2010.
524 Latin America Press, “Government considers overturning gold mining decree,”
Latin America Press, July 14, 2010. Available online at: http://lapress.org/articles.
asp?item=1&art=6176. Accessed on July 22, 2010.
525 El País, “Renunció viceministro aliado de minería a cielo abierto,” El País, January 28,
Accessed on August 7, 2013; El País, “Viceministro y asesor de Laura Chinchilla ha
sido un aliado de Crucitas,” El País, July 30, 2010. Available online at: http://www.
elpais.cr/frontend/noticia_detalle/1/29497. Accessed on August 7, 2013.
526 C. Wimmer, untitled brief, April 23, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01630.
527 La Prensa, “Canadá sale en defensa de Crucitas,” La Prensa, August 10, 2010. Available
online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2010/08/10/nacionales/447375-canada-
sale-en-defensa-de-crucitas. Accessed on August 19, 2010.
528 J. Marder, “Urgent: pco inquiry on Las Crucitas,” September 17, 2010, Access to
529 C. Salazar, “Minera de Crucitas suspendió annuncio de acciones legales tras fallo de
Justicia de Costa Rica,” El País, November 30, 2010. Available online at: www.elpais.
cr. Accessed on November 30, 2010.
530 El País, “Golpe de Estado en Poder Judicial para favorecer a minera Infinito Gold,”
El País, November 15, 2011. Available online at: http://www.elpais.cr/frontend/
noticia_detalle/1/57551. Accessed on August 7, 2013.
531 C. Salazar Fernández, “Óscar Arias sigue defendiendo ‘legalidad’ de mina de oro
en Crucitas,” El País, December 2, 2012. Available online at: http://www.elpais.cr/
frontend/noticia_detalle/1/58823. Accessed on August 7, 2013.
532 Quoted in “Infinito Gold y Minaet rehuyen debate sobre sentencia en U PAZ,”
El País, December 8, 2011. Available online at: http://www.elpais.cr/frontend/

533 El País, “Ola de protestas ocupó a Costa Rica este martes,” El País, November 11,
534 U.S. Embassy, wikileaks, cable 06SANJOSE706, Rodrigo Arias, Minister of
Presidencey, San Jose: U.S. Embassy, March 30, 2006.
535 G. Segnini, “Socio de Crucitas ofreció $250,000 a la Fundación Arias,” April 28,
2011, //m.eleconomista.net/2011/04/28/investigan-a-fundacion-arias-para-la-p
Accessed May 3, 2011.
536 Donations to political parties can be found at the www.elections.ca database.
537 On the invitation list were a number of other important Canadian corporations active
in Costa Rica, including Ebbi, Air Canada, La República newspaper, and Scotiabank.
“Empresas mineras patrocinan Fiesta en Embajada de Canadá,” El País, June 20,
538 El País, “Infinito Gold ausente en Foro de universidades público sobre minería,” El
País, November 26, 2010. Available online at: www.elpais.cr. Accessed November
29, 2010. Infinito quoted in C. Salazar, “Minera canadiense descalifica estudio sobre
daños ambientales en Crucitas,” El País, April 16, 2012. Available online at: www.
elpais.cr. Accessed on April 16, 2012.
539 El País, “Infinito Gold y Minaet rehuyen debate sobre sentencia en U PAZ,” El País,
December 8, 2011. Available online at: http://www.elpais.cr/frontend/noticia_
detalle/1/59082. Accessed on August 7, 2013.
540 El País, “Minera Infinito Gold defiende proyecto Crucitas en tercer debate,” El
País, September 29, 2010. Available online at: http://www.elpais.cr/frontend/
541 Agence France Presse, “Empresa minera canadiense demanda a diputado de Costa
Rica,” Agence France Presse, June 24, 2011. Available online at: feeds.univision.com.
Accessed on July 4, 2011; El País, “Empresa minera canadiense demanda a dos
académicos de la UCR,” El País, November 29, 2011. Available online at: www.elpais.
cr. Accessed on November 29, 2011; El País, “En Costa Rica intimidan a líderes
sociales, ambientalistas y académicos,” El País, November 23, 2011. Available online
at: www.elpais.cr. Accessed on November 23, 2011; El País, “Industrias Infinito ataca a
diputado Manrique Oviedo por supeusta difamación,” El País, June 11, 2011. Available
online at: http://www.elpais.cr/frontend/noticia_detalle/1/47371. Accessed on
August 7, 2013.
542 Quoted in El País, “En Costa Rica intimidan a líderes sociales, ambientalistas y
académicos,” El País, November 23, 2011. Available online at: http://www.elpais.
cr/frontend/noticia_detalle/1/58144. Accessed on August 7, 2013.
543 Agence France Presse, “Intensa jornada de protestas en Costa Rica,” Estrategia y
Negocios, November 22, 2011. Available online at: www.estrategiaynegocios.net.
Accessed on November 23, 2011.
544 El País, “Sepultado proyecto minero Crucitas en Costa Rica,” El País, November 30,
2011. Accessed on November 30, 2011.
Notes 327
545 M. Zimmerman, Sandinista: Carlos Fonseca and the Nicaraguan Revolution, Durham
and London: Duke University Press, 2001; R. Burbach and O. Nuñez, Fire in the
Americas: Forging a Revolutionary Agenda, London: Verso, 1987; J. Dunkerley, Power
in the Isthmus.
546 Among the mrs’s more prominent founding figures was Sergio Ramírez Mercado,
who had been Vice-President between 1985 and 1990. R. Mercado is author of
Adiós Muchachos: A Memoir of the Sandinista Revolution, Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 2011.
547 R. Burbach, “Et tu, Daniel? The Sandinista Revolution Betrayed,” nacla Report on
the Americas, 42, 2, March-April 2009, pp. 33–37; C. Ross, “A Nicaraguan Farce,”
Upside Down World, January 20, 2010. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.
org/main/nicaragua-archives-62/2330-a-nicaraguan-farce. Accessed on August 8,
2013; K. Kampwirth, “Abortion, Antifeminism, and the Return of Daniel Ortega:
In Nicaragua, Leftist Politics?” Latin American Perspectives, 35, 6, November 2008,
pp. 122–136; D. Haase, “Revolution, Interrupted: Gender and Microfinance in
Nicaragua,” Critical Sociology, 38, 2, 2011, pp. 221–240.
548 H. Perla Jr. and H. Cruz-Feliciano, “The Twenty-First-Century Left in El Salvador and
Nicaragua: Understanding Apparent Contradictions and Criticisms,” Latin American
Perspectives, 40, 3, 2013, p. 84.
549 A. Thomson, “Ortega Heads for Re-Election in Nicaragua,” Financial Times, November
7, 2011. Available online at: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/aca01480-0955-11e1-
8e86-00144feadbdc0.html#axzz2bKUzmOuA. Accessed on August 8, 2013.
550 J. Watts, “Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia Offer Asylum to Edward Snowden,”
The Guardian, July 6, 2013. Available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/
world/2013/jul/06/venezuela-nicaragua-offer-asylum-edward-snowden. Accessed
on August 8, 2013.
551 efe, “Nicaragua otorga a empresas licencia de generación de energía hidroeléctrica,”
Mis Finanzas, January 7, 2011. Available online at: http://www.misfinanzasenlinea.
com/noticias/20110109/nicaragua-otorga-a-empresas-licencia-de-generacion-de-
energia-hidroelectrica. Accessed on January 7, 2011; EFE, “Gobierno de Nicaragua
proyecta duplicar inversión extranjera directa en 2011,” Confidencial, January 25, 2011.
Available online at: http://confidencial.com.ni/archivos/articulo/3015/gobierno-
de-nicaragua-proyecta-duplicar-inversion-extranjera-directa-en-2011. Accessed on
January 25, 2011; M. Mayoral, “Nicaragua notifica record en inversion extranjera
directa,” Prensa Latina, March 22, 2012. Available online at: www.prensa-latina.cu.
Accessed on March 22, 2012.
552 A. Vaccaro, “B2Gold makes Nicaragua its platform for growth,” Northern Miner,
March 26-April 1, 2012, p. 1.
553 Vaccaro, “B2Gold makes Nicaragua its platform for growth,” p. 14.
554 La Prensa, “Nicaragua ofrecerá oportunidades mineras en Canadá,” La Prensa,
March 1, 2013. Available online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2013/03/01/
activos/136554. Accessed on August 8, 2013.
555 W. Álvarez Hidalgo, “Altos precios del oro animan exploración minera,” La Prensa,
November 29, 2011. Available online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2010/11/29/
economia/44935. Accessed on August 8, 2013.
556 Quoted in L. Navas, “Con la mirada en el mercado,” La Prensa, May 22, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2013/05/22/activos/147593-
mirada-mercado. Accessed on August 8, 2013.
557 E. Romero, “Reviven quejas contra minera,” La Prensa, June 11, 2013. Available
online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2013/06/11/ambito/150315-reviven-
quejas-contra-minera. Accessed on August 8, 2013.
558 Quoted in T. Rothschuh, “Revive protesta de mineros de Santo Domingo,” La Prensa,
August 1, 2013. Available online at: http://www.laprensa.com/ni/2013/08/01/
departamentales/157021. Accessed on August 8, 2013.
559 J. Denis Cruz, “Casos de mineros a la CIDH,” La Prensa, March 4, 2013. Available
online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2013/03/04/ambito/136792. Accessed on
August 8, 2013.
560 J. Adán Silva and L.E. Martínez, “Bendita minería maldita,” La Prensa, March 25,
2013. Available online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2013/03/25/reportajes-
especiales/139557-bendita-mineria-maldita. Accessed on August 8, 2013.
561 Quoted in Ibid.
562 Quoted in L. Eduardo Martínez, “Mujeres tampoco creen en minería,” La Prensa,
March 23, 2013. Available online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2013/03/23/
ambito/139407-mujeres-tampoco-creen-mineria?movil. Accessed on August 8,
2013.
563 Quoted in Ibid.
564 L. Navas, “Potencial minero en San Albino-Murra,” La Prensa, February 3, 2011.
Available online at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2011/02/03/economia/50920-
potencial-minero-san-albino. Accessed on August 8, 2013.
565 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Concerned by Nicaraguan
Re-election Ruling,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, October 29,
2009.
566 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Calls for Strengthened Democracy
in Nicaragua Following Elections,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
November 9, 2011; Confidencial, “Amigos de la Carta Democrática ante ‘opaca’
elección presidencial,” Confidencial, January 6, 2012. Available online at: www.
confidencial.com. Accessed on January 6, 2012.
567 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Concerned by Nicaraguan
Re-election Ruling,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, October 29,
2009.
568 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Enhances Trade Links with the
Americas,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, December 11, 2009.
569 S. Chase, “Harper signs trade deal with Panama,” Globe and Mail, August 12, 2009,
p. A4.
570 E. Fast, “Address by Minister Fast to Panama Investment Mission,” Ottawa: Foreign
Affairs and International Trade, June 17, 2011.
571 M. de Jesús Jiménez Montero, B. Ramírez Valverde, and J. Pablo Martínez Dávila,
“Construcción de territorios en Donoso, Panamá: Período 1970–2008,” Historia
Crítica, Bogotá, 48, September-December 2012, pp. 111–136.
572 La Jornada, “Los Ngäbe-Buglé de Panamá defienden su comarca y sus recursos: Contra
Notes 329
los intereses de empresas estadounidenses,” La Jornada, July 14, 2012. Available online
at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/07/14/oja-silvia.html. Accessed on August
9, 2013.
573 M. Keevil, “Inmet keeps wary eye on smouldering Panama policy debate,” Northern
Miner, March 26-April 1, 2012, p. 13.
574 Embassy, “Panama gives copper mine go-ahead,” Embassy, February 16, 2011, p.2.
575 T. Kiladze, “Panama mining code proposal rattles Inmet project,” Globe and Mail,
March 5, 2011, p. B11.
576 For a history of the racism involved in hydroelectric development in Panamá, see
M. Finley-Brook and C. Thomas, “Renewable Energy and Human Rights Violations:
Illustrative Cases from Indigenous Territories in Panama,” Annals of the Association
of American Geographers, 101, 4, 2011, pp. 863–872.
577 La Jornada, “Policía de Panamá desbloquea carreteras; un muerto, 32 heridos y 40
detenidos,” La Jornada, February 5, 2012.
578 La Jornada, “Los Ngäbe-Buglé de Panamá defienden su comarca y sus recursos: Contra
los intereses de empresas estadounidenses,” La Jornada, July 14, 2012. Available online
at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/07/14/oja-silvia.html. Accessed on August
9, 2013.
579 Mining Watch, “Two Killed in Panama Mining Protests,” Mining Watch, February 8,
2012. Available online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/two-killed-panama-
mining-protests. Accessed on February 8, 2012.
580 M. Keevil, “Inmet keeps wary eye on smouldering Panama policy debate,” p. 13.
581 Central America Data, “More conditions for mining project,” Central America Data,
January 16, 2012. Available online at: http://www.centralamericadata.com/en/
article/home/More_Conditions_for_Mining_Project. Accessed on August 10,
2012; Cultural Survival, “Panama Campaign: President Re-establishes Mining Code,”
Cultural Survival, April 11, 2012. Available online at: https://www.culturalsurvival.
org/news/good-news-panama-campaign-president-re-establishes-mining-code.
582 La Jornada, “El gobierno de Panamá anuncia apoya a la investigación a Financial
Pacific,” La Jornada, December 30, 2012. Available online at: http://www.jornada.
unam.mx/2012/12/30/economia/023n2eco. Accessed on August 9, 2013.
583 La Jornada, “Regresan directives de Financial Pacific 12.2 millones de dólares tras
escándalo,” La Jornada, January 6, 2013. Available online at: http://www.jornada.
unam.mx/2013/01/06/economia/020n2eco. Accessed on August 9, 2013.
584 P. Kent, “Minister of State Kent to Visit Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador,”
Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, January 12, 2009.
585 In 2008, Foreign Affairs provided C$88,000 for a project to provide equipment for
specialized training at the Central American Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre
in Guatemala. See Proactive Disclosure, Disclosure of Grant and Contribution
Awards over $25,000, Award date June 26, 2008. Available online at: http://www.
international.gc.ca. Accessed on April 14, 2012; and C$58,000 for technical assistance
for counterterrorism. See Proactive Disclosure, Disclosure of Grant and Contribution
Awards over $25,000, award date September 2, 2008. Available online at: http://
www.international.gc.ca/. Accessed on April 14, 2012.
586 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Committed to Peace, Justice and
Security in Guatemala,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, June 23,
2011.
587 National Defence, “Estimate of Ongoing Instability in Guatemala,” 2009, Access to
588 Prime Minister’s Office, “Prime Minister Harper Announces Contributions to
Security Enhancements in Central America,” Ottawa: Prime Ministe’s Office, August
12, 2011.
589 Prime Minister’s Office, “Prime Minister Harper Announces Support to Enhance
Security in the Americas,” Ottawa: Prime Ministe’s Office, April 15, 2012; Foreign
Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Reinforces Support for Improved Security
in Americas,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, June 5, 2012; National
Defence, “Canada to Donate Equipment to Belize Defence Forces,” Ottawa: National
Defence, June 12, 2012; Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Announces
Regional Support to Combat Illicit Drug Trafficking in Washington D.C.,” Ottawa:
Foreign Affairs and International Trade, July 2, 2012.
590 National Defence, “Minister MacKay Announces Canadian Participation in Exercise
panamax,” Ottawa: National Defence, August 12, 2011.
591 A. Bird, “Drugs and Business: Central America Faces Another Round of Violence,”
nacla Report on the Americas, Spring 2012, p. 35.
592 G. Isfeld, “Export Development Canada Opens Bogotá Office amid Central, South
America Push,” Financial Post, February 5, 2014. Available online at: http://business.
financialpost.com/2014/02/05/export-development-canada-opens-bogota-office-
amid-central-south-america-push/. Accessed on February 10, 2014.
593 Mining Watch and censat-Agua Viva, Land and Conflict: Resource Extraction, Human
Rights, and Corporate Social Responsibility—Canadian Companies in Colombia, Ottawa:
Inter Pares, 2009, p. 11.
594 Cansim data table 376-0051, accessed October 2, 2013; Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, “An fta with the Andean Community countries of Colombia
and Peru: Qualitative Economic Analysis,” June 2007. Available online at: www.
international.gc.ca. Accessed on November 1, 2008.
595 A. Ismi, Profiting from Repression: Canadian Investment in and Trade with Colombia,
third edition, 2012, p. 31 fn 40.
596 Mining property data is from the www.northernminer.com property database.
Accessed on October 3, 2013.
597 N. López, “Mining and oil boom propel investment in Colombia,” Bloomerg
Business, August 15, 2010. Available online at: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/
financialnews/D9HK2EV01.htm. Accessed on August 18, 2010; P. Christopher
Webster, “Colombia is Canada’s new best friend,” Globe and Mail, April 26, 2012.
Available online at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/
rob-magazine/colombia-is-canadas-new-best-friend/article4102946/?page=all.
Accessed on January 1, 2016.
598 Webster, “Colombia is Canada’s new best friend.”
599 Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, “Minister Fast Holds Extractive-Sector
Round Table with Canadian Companies in Colombia,” Bogotá, Colombia: Foreign
Notes 331
Affairs, Trade and Development, August 12, 2014.

601 Globe and Mail, “Brookfield to invest $400 million in Colombia,” Globe and Mail,
September 10, 2009, p. B10.
602 Semana, “Cuando el río suena…,” Semana, October 8, 2011. Available online at:
http://m.semana.com/economia/articulo/cuando-rio-suena/247572-3. Accessed
on June 9, 2014.
603 G. Robertson, “Scotiabank buys Banco Colpatria,” Globe and Mail, October 20, 2011.
Available online at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/scotiabank-
buys-banco-colpatria/article559128/. Accessed on October 20, 2011; La República,
“Scotia y Colpatria traerán inversión canadiense en minería,” La República, January
18, 2012. Available online at: www.larepublica.co. Accessed on January 23, 2012.
604 J. Rafael Nieto López, “Resistencia social en Colombia: Entre Guerra y neoliberalismo,”
Observatorio Social de América Latina (osal), 30, October 2011.
605 For a classic account of la violencia in the department of Antioquia, see M. Roldán,
Blood and Fire: La Violencia in Antioquia, Colombia, 1946–1953, Durham: Duke
University Press, 2002.
606 R. Zibechi, “La Paz del extractivismo en Colombia,” La Jornada, July 9, 2012. Available
online at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/09/07/opinion/021a2pol. Accessed
on February 10, 2014.
607 For background, see N. Richani, Systems of Violence: The Political Economy of War
and Peace in Colombia, Second Edition, Albany: State University of New York Press,
2014.
608 On the up, see F. Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, London: Verso, 2006, pp. 72–78.
609 R. Zibechi, “La Paz del extractivismo en Colombia”; On Plan Colombia, see J. Petras,
“The Geopolitics of Plan Colombia,” Monthly Review, 53, 1, 2001, pp. 30–49.
610 Nieto López, “Resistencia social en Colombia,” p. 127.
611 F. Hylton, “The Experience of Defeat: The Colombian Left and the Cold War that
Never Ends,” Historical Materialism, 22, 1, 2014, pp. 89–90.
612 F. Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia, pp. 80–86.
613 J. Hristov, “Uribe and the Paramilitarization of the Colombian State,” New Socialist,
59, 2006, p. 14.
614 W. Avilés, “Paramilitarism and Colombia’s Low-Intensity Democracy,” Journal of
Latin American Studies, 38, 2, 2006, p. 380.
615 K. Sankey, “Colombia—The Mining Boom: A Catalyst of Development or
Resistance?” in Veltmeyer and Petras, eds., The New Extractivism; see also,
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Annual Survey of Violations of
Trade Union Rights, 2006; C. Campbell, “Addicted to Blood Coal,” Maclean’s, March
20, 2006, p. 36.
616 F. Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination: How U.S. Corporate Power is Destroying
Colombia, Translated by A. Chomsky, Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press,
2005, p. 86–87.
617 Hylton, Evil Hour, p 4; and Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination, pp. 84–85.
618 Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination, p. 85.
619 Central Intelligence Agency (cia), cia: World Fact Book, Washington, D.C.: cia,
2006.
620 Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination, pp. 82–83.
621 Hristov, “Uribe and the Paramilitarization,” p. 14.
622 See J. Hristov, Paramilitarism and Neoliberalism: Violent Systems of Capital Accumulation
in Colombia and Beyond, London: Pluto Books, 2014.
623 N. Richani, “The Agrarian Rentier Political Economy: Land Concentration and Food
Insecurity in Colombia,” Latin American Research Review, 47, 2, 2012, p. 51.
624 Ibid., p. 69.
625 Ibid., p. 68.
626 F. Hylton, “The Experience of Defeat,” p. 91.
628 Ibid., p. 128.
629 Ibid., p. 129. The Human Rights Watch report is cited in R. Zibechi, “El retorno
triunfal del campesinado,” América Latina en Movimiento, September 23, 2013.
Available online at: http://alainet.org/active/67650&lang=es. Accessed on February
13, 2014.
631 Ibid., pp. 129–130.
632 Ibid., p. 130.
633 Hylton, Evil Hour, p 129.
634 For the statement alluding to Venezuela see R. Foot, “Harper Touts Third Way,
Emulate Canada Not U.S. PM Says in Chile,” National Post, 18 July 2007, p. A1; for
the statement on Colombia see R. Foot, “PM Defends Entering Free Trade Talks
with Colombia” National Post, 17 July 2007, p. A4.
635 Hylton, Evil Hour, p. 105.
636 Ibid., p. 93.
637 Ibid., p. 94.
639 Ibid.
640 Peace Brigades International, “Mining in Colombia: At What Cost?” Newsletter, 18,
November 2011, pp. 9–10, 14–15.
642 Forrest Hylton is correct to remind us, in a sober counterweight to Panglossian
readings of the revival of a new Colombian Left in the wake of the peace negotiations
and the agrarian strike, that evidence of lasting, urban articulations of Left renewal
in Colombia is still fragmentary at best. “Despite several days of protest in Bogotá,
there was no urban Left to capitalise on the unrest,” he writes, “or overcome, through
coalition-building, the sectorial limits of rural protest in a predominantly urban
polity.” Hylton, “The Experience of Defeat,” p. 68. Nonetheless, the size of the agrarian
mobilizations of the summer of 2013 is probably indicative of a new cycle of struggle
at least in the Colombian countryside, where the consequence of extractivism is felt
Notes 333
most fiercely.
643 R. Zibechi, “El retorno triunfal del campesinado,” América Latina en Movimiento,
September 23, 2013. Available online at: http://alainet.org/active/67650&lang=es.
Accessed on February 13, 2014.
644 Ibid.
645 Ibid.
646 C. Zarate-Laun, “Gold v. Water,” Counterpunch, January 20, 2011. Available online
at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/01/20/gold-v-water/. Accessed on January
21, 2011.
Resistance?” in Veltmeyer and Petras, eds., The New Extractivism, pp. 122, 126.
648 Y. Cuervo Sotelo, “Una aproximación a la megaminería en Colombia,” Revista Theomai,
25, 2012, p. 140.
649 Sankey, “Colombia—The Mining Boom: A Catalyst of Development or Resistance?”
p. 130.
650 Peace Brigades International, “Mining in Colombia: At What Cost?” Newsletter, 18,
November 2011, p. 4.
p. 132.
652 Cuervo Sotelo, “Una aproximación a la megaminería en Colombia,” p. 143.
653 Ibid.
654 Peace Brigades International, “Mining in Colombia: At What Cost?” p. 6.
p. 126.
656 Cuervo Sotelo, “Una aproximación a la megaminería en Colombia,” p. 142.
657 D. Paley, “Canadian Companies Out for Colombian Oil,” nacla Report on the
Americas, August 11, 2010. Available online at: nacla.org. Accessed on September
19, 2010.
658 P. Knox, “Canada’s Role in Colombia Probed,” The Globe and Mail, June 1, 2001, p.
A11.
659 K. Patterson, “The Trouble with Junior: Small-Scale Companies Dogged by
Controversy,” The Ottawa Citizen, October 3, 2005, p. A4.
660 Toronto Star, “The Brutal Price of Fly-By-Night Mining,” Toronto Star, January 21,
1999, p. A1.
661 Ismi, “Profiting from Repression.”
662 Hylton, Evil Hour, p. 91.
663 D. Pugliese, “Soldiers of Fortune,” The Ottawa Citizen, November 12, 2005, p. A1.
664 Vancouver Sun, “Colombia Not Safe,” Vancouver Sun, May 4, 2002, p A2.
665 A. Robinson, “Mining Conference to Tackle Range of Controversial Issues,” Globe
and Mail, May 13, 2002, p. B3.
666 Ibid., p. B4.
667 Quoted in Ibid., p. B4.
668 Quoted in Harris, “Colombia’s Troubles Pale Next to Golden Opportunities,” Globe
and Mail, January 4, 2006, p. B4. For Hristov, “Uribe’s re-election” [in 2006] signifies:
1) The continuation of a system characterized by unequal, exploitative, alienating and
exclusionary social relations; 2) The aggravation of the country’s subordinate position

in the global capitalist hierarchy; 3) The consolidation of U.S. imperial (military and
economic) presence; 4) The legalization of illegality, a fusion of the legal and the
illegal in such a creative way, that the government can claim the paramilitary no longer
exists, when in reality it has profoundly penetrated the very fabric of state institutions
and the national economy; 5) The initiation of a new phase of the model: the unified
Colombian para-narco state; 6) The invigoration of social struggles.” Hristov, “Uribe
and the Paramilitarization,” p. 15.
669 P. Harris, “Illegal mining Colombia’s new bane,” Globe and Mail, May 9, 2013, B10.
670 Cited in Joan Martínez Alier, “Consultas populares en Colombia contra industrias
extractivas,” La Jornada, February 9, 2014. Available line at: http://www.jornada.
unam.mx/2014/02/09/economia/022a1eco. Accessed on February 10, 2014.
671 Joan Martínez Alier, “Consultas populares en Colombia contra industrias extractivas.”
672 Carrie Tait, “Pacific Rubiales Strikes Deal to Acquire Petrominerales,” The Globe and
Mail, September 30, 2013. Available on-line at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/rubiales-strikes-deal-for-
petrominerales/article14600753/. Accessed on February 12, 2014.
673 López, “Mining and oil boom propel investment in Colombia.”
674 J. Bogan, “A Crude Climber in Colombia,” Forbes, September 29, 2009. Available
online at: http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/29/pacific-rubiales-colombia-business-
energy-old.html. Accessed on February 12, 2014.
675 A. Schipani, “Pacific Rubiales has Faith in Colombia,” Financial Times, July 25, 2013.
Available online at: http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/07/25/pacific-rubiales-
has-faith-in-colombia/#axzz2tg4gdna3. Accessed on February 12, 2014.
676 Ibid.
677 J. Bogan, “A Crude Climber in Colombia.”
678 A. Schipani, “Pacific Rubiales has Faith in Colombia.”
679 Ibid.
680 A. Schipani, “Colombia’s Oil Producers Surge Ahead,” Financial Times, June 3,
2013. Available online at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/92b87f80-9de2-11e2-9ccc-
00144feabdc0.html. Accessed on February 12, 2014.
681 C. Queiroz, “Continúa impase entre trabajadores y empresas petroleras,”
Adital, July 26, 2011. Available online at: http://site.adital.com.br/site/noticia.
php?lang=ES&cod=58709. Accessed on August 6, 2011.
682 Nieto López, “Resistencia social en Colombia: Entre Guerra y neoliberalismo,”
Observatorio Social de América Latina (osal), 30, October 2011, p. 139.
683 L. Jaime Acosta, “Colombia Increases Security at Largest Oil Field,” National
Post, October 26, 2011. Available online at: http://business.financialpost.
com/2011/10/26/colombia-increases-security-at-largest-oil-field/?__
lsa=760c-1710. Accessed on February 12, 2014.
684 C. Kraul, “Colombia Seeks Truce in Oil Workers Strike,” Los Angeles Times, September
22, 2011. Available online at: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/22/business/
la-fi-colombia-oil-strike-20110922. Accessed on February 12, 2014.
685 D. Coles, “Shame on this Canadian Company,” Huffington Post (Canada),
January 8, 2013. Available online at: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/dave-coles/
Notes 335
pacific-rubiales-energy-colombia-_b_3683318.html. Accessed on February 12, 2014.

686 Ibid.
687 N. Logan, “Colombian Labour Union Accuses Canada’s Pacific Rubiales Energy of
intimidation,” Global News, July 19, 2013. Available online at: http://globalnews.ca/
news/729796/colombian-labour-union-accuses-canadas-pacific-rubiales-energy-
of-intimidation/. Accessed on July 21, 2013; López, “Mining and oil boom propel
investment in Colombia”; Queiroz, “Continúa impase entre trabajadores y empresas
petroleras”; J. Barber, “Is this how the system works? Canadian government looks
away as Pacific Rubiales faces accussations in Colombia,” Rabble, September 20,
2013. Available online at: http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/comfront/2013/09/
this-how-system-works-canadian-government-looks-away-pacific-rubiale. Accessed
688 Semana, “Pesos pesados,” Semana, May 11, 2013. Available online at: http://www.
semana.com/100-empresas/articulo/pesos-pesados/342855-3. Accessed on June
9, 2014.
689 Semana, “Pacific Rubiales sube su apuesta por crudo Colombiano,” Semana,
September 2013. Available online at: http://www.semana.com/Imprimir.
aspx?idItem=359466. Accessed on March 21, 2014.
690 D. Healing, “Colombia oil and gas protests could undermine shareholder confidence:
Analysts,” Montreal Gazette, September 22, 2011. Available online at: www.
montrealgazette.com. Accessed on September 28, 2011; Peace Brigades International,
“Mining in Colombia: At What Cost?” p. 39.
691 Semana, “Angustia por la obtención de petróleo,” Semana, December 21, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.semana.com/Imprimir.aspx?idItem=369103.
692 Ibid.
693 Semana, “Otro hallazgo de petróleo en Colombia,” Semana, December 9, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/ecopetrol-encuentra-
pozo-petrolero/367726-3. Accessed on June 9, 2014.
694 I. Bickis, “Gran Colombia struggles with violence in Colombia,” Northern Miner,
October 31-November 6, 2011, p. 19.
695 Semana, “Proyectos mineros en el socavón,” Semana, August 10, 2013. Available
online at: http://www.semana.com/economia/articulo/proyectos-mineros-
socavon/353676-3. Accessed on June 9, 2014.
696 Al Jazeera, “Colombia’s Goldrush,” Al Jazeera, July 5, 2011. Available online at: http://
www.aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2011/07/2011757127575176.html.
697 El Tiempo, “Un misterio, el asesinato del párroco de Marmato,” El Tiempo, September
5, 2011. Available online at: www.eltiempo.com. Accessed on June 5, 2014; G.
Conte, “La historia más infame: la montaña de oro que mató a un joven cura en
colombia,” MDZ, September 14, 2011. Available online at: http://www.mdzol.com/
nota/326116-la-historia-mas-infame-la-montana-de-oro-quemato-a-un-joven-cura-
en-colombia/. Accessed on September 4, 2013.
699 Semana, “Proyectos mineros en el socavón.”
700 Bickis, “Gran Colombia struggles with violence in Colombia.”

701 J. Fernando Rojas T., “Crisis del oro desata despidos en Segovia,” El Colombiano,
January 30, 2014. Available online at: http://www.elcolombiano.com/
BancoConocimiento/C/crisis_del_oro_desata_despidos_en_segovia/crisis_del_
oro_desata_despidos_en_segovia.asp. Accessed on February 17, 2014.
702 Y. Amat, “‘Colombia está al borde de un desastre ambiental’: Sandra Morelli,” El
Tiempo, October 14, 2012. Available online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/
documento/CMS-12303681. Accessed on: February 18, 2014.
703 Semana, “Proyectos mineros en el socavón.”
704 Semana, “La Pelea por Santurbán,” Semana, December 7, 2013. Available online
at: http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/la-pelea-por-santurban/367354-3.
Resistance?” p. 137.
706 Semana, “La guerra por los parques naturales,” Semana, June 1, 2013. Available
online at: http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/la-guerra-por-los-parques-
naturales/345087-3. Accessed on June 9, 2014.
707 Semana, “Pesos pesados,” Semana, May 11, 2013. Available online at: http://www.
semana.com/100-empresas/articulo/pesos-pesados/342855-3. Accessed on June
9, 2014.
708 Mining Watch and censat-Agua Viva, Land and Conflict: Resource Extraction, Human
Rights, and Corporate Social Responsibility—Canadian Companies in Colombia, Ottawa:
Inter Pares, 2009.
709 Ibid., p. 42.
710 Ibid., p. 43.
711 Ibid., p. 43.
712 ibid., p. 43.
713 Y. Amat, “‘Colombia está al borde de un desastre ambiental’.”
714 Mining Watch, “Defending land and life against an impending train wreck: Canadian
mining in Colombia,” Mining Watch, December 4, 2011. Available online at: http://
www.miningwatch.ca/article/defending-land-and-life-against-impending-train-
wreck-canadian-mining-colombia. Accessed on January 15, 2012.
715 Reuters, “Colombia to prohibit mining in gold-rich northern area,” Mining Weekly,
January 9, 2013. Available online at: www.miningweekly.com. Accessed on January
10, 2013.
716 efe, “Colombia considera rebajar impuestos a empresas mineras, dice el ministro
Rodado,” sdp Noticias, March 8, 2011. Available online at: http://www.sdpnoticias.
com/notas/2011/03/08/colombia-considera-rebajar-impuestos-a-empresas-
mineras-dice-el-ministro-rodado. Accessed on March 14, 2011; Globe and Mail,
“Greystar to modify Colombian project,” Globe and Mail, March 19, 2011, p. B9;
Gordon, Imperialist Canada, p. 209.
717 J. Silva Herrera, “Tres magistrados van a la selva; evalúan si permiten extracción de
oro,” El Tiempo, January 29, 2014. Available online at: http://www.eltiempo.com/
vida-de-hoy/ecologia/ARTICULO-WEB-NEW_NOTA_INTERIOR-13427338.
html. Accessed on February 18, 2014.
Notes 337
718 Semana, “La guerra por los parques naturales,” Semana, June 1, 2013. Available
online at: http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/la-guerra-por-los-parques-
naturales/345087-3. Accessed on June 9, 2014.
719 Semana, “Procuraduría pide frenar proyecto minero en el corazón de la Amazonía,”
Semana, July 14, 2011. Available online at: http://www.semana.com/nacion/
articulo/procuraduria-pide-frenar-proyecto-minero-corazon-amazonia/243001-3.
720 G. des Rivières, “Embajada de Canadá—Mensaje para del Dr. Tomás González,
Viceministro de Minas,” Bogotá: Canadian Embassy, August 27, 2010, Access to
721 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Minister Ablonczy to Lead Trade Mission
to Peru, Colombia and Panama,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
November 9, 2012.
722 Despite the significance of the fta and Canada’s relations with Colombia, the
mainstream foreign policy literature has barely given either any attention. Randall and
Dowling’s analysis of Canada’s engagement with Colombia, a rarity in the literature,
astonishingly barely mentions the fta and ignores the killings of unionists and
indigenous peoples. S. Randall and J. Dowding, “Canada, Latin America, Colombia,
and the Evolving Policy Agenda,” Canadian Foreign Policy, 14, 2008, pp. 29–46.
723 E. Payne, “Colombian Activists Say Canadian Companies Benefitting from Human
Rights Abuses,” Ottawa Citizen, February 6, 2014. Available online at: http://www.
ottawacitizen.com/news/Colombian+activists+says+Canadian+companies+benef
iting+from/9478549/story.html. Accessed on February 13, 2014.
724 L. Diebel, “How free, this deal?” Toronto Star, April 4, 2010, pp. IN1, 2. Internal
embassy and fait reports on Colombia commonly note the poor human rights
situation in the country.
725 S. Harper, “Statement by Prime Minister Harper on his visit to Colombia following
meetings with President Uribe,” July 16, 2007. Available online at: www.pm.gc.ca/
eng/media.asp?id=1755. Accessed on May, 2008.
726 S. Day, Hansard, 40th Parliament, 2nd Session, Number 080, September 14, 2009.
727 This was certainly an argument employed by Brison during the parliamentary debates.
728 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada-Colombia Bilateral Relations,”
Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2010-02392.
729 Yates, “Annotated Agenda: Third Annual Canada-Colombia Consultations on Human
Rights,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 2011, Access to Information,
file A-2011-02145.
730 D. Paley, “Ten Injured as Riot Police Break Strike at Calgary-owned Oil Company,”
Upside Down World, June 14, 2010. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.
org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2541-colombia-ten-injured-as-riot-police-break-
strike-at-calgary-owned-oil-company. Accessed on June 17, 2010.
731 Just the Facts, “Murders of human rights defenders jump sharply in Colombia,” Just
the Facts, August 6, 2013. Available online at: www.justf.org. Accessed on August 9,
2013.
732 The reports can be found online at http://www.canadainternational.
gc.ca/colombia-colombie/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/hrft-co_2012-dple.
aspx?lang=eng.
733 Quoted in C. Arsenault, “Digging Up Canadian Dirt in Colombia,” Canadian
Dimension, November/December 2006, p. 32.
734 J. Hristov, “Indigenous Struggles for Land and Culture in Cauca, Colombia,” Journal of
Peasant Studies, 32, 1, 2005, p. 110; Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination, pp.
38–41; J. Kuyek, “Legitimating Plunder: Canadian Mining Companies and Corporate
Social Responsibility,” in L. North, T. Clark and V. Patroni, eds., Community Rights
and Corporate Responsibility: Canadian Mining and Oil Companies in Latin America,
Toronto: Between the Lines, 2006, p. 209.
735 Ramírez Cuellar, The Profits of Extermination, p 38.
736 Ibid.
737 Company manager and the environmental consultant are quoted in Al Jazeera,
“Colombia’s Goldrush,” Al Jazeera, July 5, 2011. Available online at: http://www.
aljazeera.com/programmes/faultlines/2011/07/2011757127575176.html.
738 Dinero, “Lo que pierde el Estado por privilegios tributarios a la mineria,” Dinero,
April 26, 2013. Available online at: http://www.dinero.com/economia/articulo/
lo-pierde-estado-privilegios-tributarios-mineria/174393. Accessed on April 26,
2013.
739 Canadian International Development Agency, “Minister Oda announces initiatives to
increase the benefits of natural resource management for people in Africa and South
America,” September 29, 2011. Available online at: www.acdi-cida.gc.ca. Accessed
740 V. Pinto, “Reestructuración neoliberal del estado peruano, industrias extrativas y
derechos sobre el territorio,” in José de Echave C., Raphael Hoetmer and Mario
Palacios Panéz, eds., Minería y territorio en el Perú: Conflictos, resistencias y propuestas
en tiempos de globalización, Lima: Programa Democracia y Transformación Global,
2009, p. 85.
741 F. Li, Unearthing Conflict: Corporate Mining, Activism, and Expertise in Peru,
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2015; M. Arce, Resource Extraction
and Protest in Peru, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014; J. Bury and T.
Norris, “Rocks, Rangers, and Resistance: Mining and Conservation Frontiers in
the Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru,” in A. Bebbington and J. Bury, eds., Subterranean
Struggles: New Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America, Austin: University
of Texas Press, 2013; A. Bebbington and M. Scurrah, “Hydrocarbon Conflicts and
Indigenous Peoples in the Peruvian Amazon: Mobilization and Negotiation Along
the Río Corrientes,” in A. Bebbington and J. Bury, eds., Subterranean Struggles: New
Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America; J.C. Postigo, M. Montoya, and
K.R. Young, “Natural Resources in the Subsoil and Social Conflicts on the Surface:
Perspectives on Peru’s Subsurface Political Ecology,” in A. Bebbington and J. Bury,
eds., Subterranean Struggles: New Dynamics of Mining, Oil, and Gas in Latin America,
Austin; L. Taylor, “Environmentalism and Social Protest: The Contemporary Anti-
Mining Mobilization in the Province of San Marcos and Condebamba Valley, Peru,”
Journal of Agrarian Change, 11, 3, 2011; J. Lust, “Peru: Mining Capital and Social
Notes 339
Resistance,” in Veltmeyer and Petras, eds., The New Extractivism.

742 cepal, Anuario Estadístico de América Latina y el Caribe 2014, Santiago, Chile: cepal,
2014, p. 78.
743 M. Sosa and M. Zwarteveen, “Exploring the Politics of Water Grabbing: The Case
of Large Mining Operations in the Peruvian Andes,” Water Alternatives, 5, 2, 2012,
p. 360.
744 J. Arellano-Yanguas, “Aggravating the Resource Curse: Decentralisation, Mining and
Conflict in Peru,” The Journal of Development Studies, 47, 4, 2011, p. 620.
745 A.F. Ponce and C. McClintock, “The Explosive Combination of Inefficient Local
Bureaucracies and Mining Production: Evidence from Localized Societal Protest in
Peru,” Latin American Politics and Society, 56, 3, 2014, p. 121.
746 A. Schipani, “Peru’s President Sees a Sharp 2014 gdp Slump,” Financial Times, January
7, 2015. Available online at: http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2015/01/07/perus-
president-sees-a-sharp-2014-gdp-slump/. Accessed on March 1, 2015.
747 J. De Echave, “La minería peruana y los escenarios de transición,” in A. Alayza Moncloa
and E. Gudynas, eds, Transiciones: Post extractivismo y alternativas al extractivismo en
el Perú, Lima: Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales, cepes, 2011, p. 68.
748 Ibid., p. 69.
749 Ibid., p. 70.
750 R. Zibechi, “Peru: Resistencia en los Andes a la minería,” América Latina en Movimiento,
March 11, 2013. Available online at: http://alainet.org/active/62367&lang=es.
751 Ibid., p. 77.
752 Andina, “Inversiones canadienses en Perú suman casi US$8,000 millones,” Andina,
September 28, 2013. Available online at: www.andina.com.pe. Accessed on October
1, 2013. Mining property figures are from the www.northernminer.com property
database.
753 Agencia Orbita, “Canadiense Dessau adquiere empresa peruana y fortalece su
presencia en sector energético,” Agencia Orbita, July 6, 2012. Available online at:
http://agenciaorbita.org/. Accessed on July 7, 2012.
754 Foreign Affairs, “Briefing Book for the Minister and Deputy Minister of Foreign
Affairs: Peru, Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, specific date unknown, 2009, Access to Information, file
A-2010-00541.
756 E. Gudynas, “Caminos par alas transiciones post extractivistas,” in A. Alayza Moncloa
and E. Gudynas, eds., Transiciones: Post extractivismo y alternativas al extractivismo en
el Perú, Lima: Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales, cepes, 2011, p. 190.
757 Ibid., p. 199.
758 Ibid., pp. 190–191.
759 E. Figueroa, C. Orihuela, and E. Calfucura, “Green Accounting and Sustainability
of the Peruvian Metal Mining Sector,” Resources Policy, 35, 2010, pp. 156, 165.
760 A. Bebbington and M. Williams, “Water and Mining Conflicts in Peru,” Mountain
Research and Development, 28, 3, 2008, p. 190.
761 Ibid., p. 191.

762 Ibid., p. 191.
763 Ibid., p. 191.
764 M. Sosa and M. Zwarteveen, “Exploring the Politics of Water Grabbing: The Case
of Large Mining Operations in the Peruvian Andes,” Water Alternatives, 5, 2, 2012,
p. 361.
765 Ibid., p. 372.
766 J. Carlos Mariátegui, “The Economic Factor in Peruvian History,” in H.E. Vanden and
M. Becker, eds., José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology, New York: Monthly Review
Press, 2011, p. 118.
767 J. Carlos Mariátegui, “On the Indigenous Problem: A Brief Historical Overview,” in
in H.E. Vanden and M. Becker, eds., José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology, p. 145.
768 J. Carlos Mariátegui, “The Land Problem,” in H.E. Vanden and M. Becker, eds., José
Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology, p. 111.
769 J. Carlos Mariátegui, “Colonial Economy,” in H.E. Vanden and M. Becker, eds., José
Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology, p. 134.
770 J. Carlos Mariátegui, “Programmatic Principles of the Socialist Party,” in H.E. Vanden
and M. Becker, eds., José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology, p. 238.
771 J. Carlos Mariátegui, “The Problems of Race in Latin America,” in H.E. Vanden and
M. Becker, eds., José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology, p. 310.
772 J. Carlos Mariátegui, “Peru’s Principal Problem,” in H.E. Vanden and M. Becker, eds.,
José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology, p. 140.
773 For a classic account, see H. Blanco, Land or Death: The Peasant Struggle in Peru, New
York: Pathfinder Press, 1972.
774 G. Rénique, “‘People’s War,’ ‘Dirty War’: Cold War Legacy and the End of History
in Postwar Peru,” in Grandin and Joseph, eds., A Century of Violence, p. 320.
775 Ibid., p. 328.
776 Ibid., p. 328.
777 S.J. Stern, ed., Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980–1995, Durham
and London: Duke University Press, 1998.
778 Rénique, “’People’s War,’ ‘Dirty War’,” pp. 308–309.
779 Ibid., p. 309.
780 D. Poole and G. Rénique, “Terror and the Privatized State: A Peruvian Parable,”
Radical History Review, 85, 2003, p. 153.
781 See “Final Report,” Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Lima, Peru, 2003.
Available online at: http://www.cverdad.org.pe/ingles/ifinal/conclusiones.php.
Accessed on February 28, 2015.
782 Poole and Rénique, “Terrorism and the Privatized State,” p. 153.
783 Montesinos is presently serving an extensive sentence for various corruption
convictions. He was arrested several months after fleeing the country, following
Fujimori’s downfall in 2000. He has also been charged with extortion, arms smuggling,
drug running, and directing a paramilitary death squad. See, among others, New York
Times, “Peru Ex-Spy Chief Says Candidate for President Aided His Escape,” New York
Times, May 21, 2006. Available online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/
world/americas/21peru.html?ref=topics. Accessed on March 1, 2015.
Notes 341
784 Rénique, “‘People’s War,’ ‘Dirty War’,” p. 332.

785 V. Pinto, “Reestructuración neoliberal del estado peruano, industrias extrativas y
derechos sobre el territorio,” in J. de Echave C., R. Hoetmer and M. Palacios Panéz,
eds., Minería y territorio en el Perú: Conflictos, resistencias y propuestas en tiempos de
globalización, Lima: Programa Democracia y Transformación Global, 2009, pp. 87–93.
786 J. de Echave C., “Minería y conflictos sociales en el Perú,” in in J. de Echave C.,
R. Hoetmer and M. Palacios Panéz, eds., Minería y territorio en el Perú: Conflictos,
resistencias y propuestas en tiempos de globalización, p. 107.
787 A.F. Ponce and C. McClintock, “The Explosive Combination of Inefficient Local
Bureaucracies and Mining Production: Evidence from Localized Societal Protest in
Peru,” Latin American Politics and Society, 56, 3, 2014, p. 121.
788 Ibid., pp. 120–121.
789 J. Todd Bury, “Livelihoods, Mining and Peasant Protests in the Peruvian Andes,”
Journal of Latin American Geography, 1, 1, 2002, p. 5.
791 Ibid., p. 621.
792 Bury, “Livelihoods, Mining and Peasant Protests in the Peruvian Andes,” p. 5.
793 Ibid., p. 4; R. Hoetmer, “Lo visible, lo possible y los ausente: movimientos y conflictos
sociales en el Perú,” Observatorio Social de América Latina, 8, 20, 2006, p. 180.
794 M. Arce, “The Repoliticization of Collective Action After Neoliberalism in Peru,”
Latin American Politics and Society, 50, 3, 2008, pp. 43–44.
795 Ibid., p. 53.
796 G. Bland and L.A. Chirinos, “Democratization Through Contention? Regional and
Local Governance Conflict in Peru,” Latin American Politics and Society, 56, 1, 2014,
p. 75.
797 Arce, “The Repoliticization of Collective Action,” p. 53.
798 Hoetmer, “Lo visible, lo possible y los ausente,” p. 178.
799 J. de Echave, “Mining and Communities in Peru: Constructing a Framework for
Decision-Making,” in L. North, T. David Clark and V. Patroni, eds., Community Rights
and Corporate Responsibility: Canadian Mining and Oil Companies in Latin America.
Toronto: Between the Lines, 2005, p. 17.
800 W. Stuek, “Mining Firms Agree to Peruvian Payment,” The Globe and Mail, August 25,
2006, p. B5; D. Szablowski, “Regulating Corporate and Community Engagement in
a Large Mining Project,” in L. North, T. David Clark and V. Patroni, eds., Community
Rights and Corporate Responsibility: Canadian Mining and Oil Companies in Latin
America, pp. 37–59; de Echave, “Mining and Communities in Peru,” pp. 21–30.
801 E. Orozco, “Manhattan Minerals Likes Prospects in Peru’s Tambogrande Project:
Gold and Copper Mine,” National Post, January 3, 2002, p. FP4.
802 C. Mauro, “Peruvian Farmers Try to Prevent Strip Mining,” The Vancouver Sun,
February 12, 2003, p. C2.
803 K. Leger, “Murder, Mayhem and Mining: Canadian Company Caught in Fracas over
Peruvian Plans,” National Post, May 15, 2001, p. C1.
804 H. Haarstad and A. Fløysand, “Globalization and the Power of Rescaled Narratives:
A Case of Opposition to Mining in Tambogrande, Peru,” Political Geography, 26,
2007, p. 296.
805 Ibid.; Orozco, “Manhattan Minerals Likes Prospects.”
806 R. Kozak, “Manhattan Mine Scheme Rejected: Citizens in Peruvian Village Vote
Solidly to Disallow Project,” National Post, June 4, 2002, p. FP10.
807 de Echave, “Mining and Communities in Peru,” pp. 118–119.
808 Ibid., pp. 119–120.
809 Ibid., p. 122.
810 Leger, “Murder, Mayhem and Mining.”
811 F. Ojeda Riofrío, “Tambogrande: A Community in Defence of Its Rights,” in L. North,
T. David Clark and V. Patroni, eds., Community Rights and Corporate Responsibility:
Canadian Mining and Oil Companies in Latin America, pp. 60–62.
812 Graham Chow, Manhattan’s chief executive, was quoted as follows: “There have been
several robberies of landowners in the area for payroll in the last two months. Police
have identified a suspect and he’s a petty criminal with a long criminal record in the
area and the investigation is going to take its course.” Leger, “Murder, Mayhem and
Mining.”
813 Ojeda Riofrío, “Tambogrande: A Community in Defence of Its Rights,” pp. 61–62.
814 J. Martínez Alier, “Referendos mineros locales: Kañaris, en Perú,” La Jornada,
February 22, 2013. Available online at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/02/22/
opinion/025a1pol. Accessed on March 1, 2015.
815 Kozak, “Manhattan Mine Scheme Rejected.”
816 Ojeda Riofrío, “Tambogrande: A Community in Defence of Its Rights,” p. 61.
817 Arce, “The Repoliticization of Collective Action,” p. 55.
818 Haarstad and Fløysand, “Globalization and the Power of Rescaled Narratives,” p. 296.
819 Arellano-Yanguas, “Aggravating the Resource Curse,” p. 621.
820 M. Himley, “Regularizing Extraction in Andean Peru: Mining and Social Mobilization
in an Age of Corporate Social Responsibility,” Antipode, 45, 2, 2013, pp. 402–403.
821 Ibid., p. 403.
822 Ibid., p. 395.
823 M. Himley, “Mining History: Mobilizing the Past in Struggles Over Mineral Extraction
in Peru,” Geographical Review, 104, 2, 2014, p. 185.
824 H. Guergis, “Notes for an Address by the Honourable Helena Geurgis, Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Secretary of State for Sport, to the
Canada-Peru Chamber of Commerce,” Lima, Peru: Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, July 23, 2007.
825 A. Páez, “Peru: Three Days of Anti-Government Protests,” Inter Press Service. July
8, 2009. Available online at: http://www.ipsnews.net/2009/07/peru-three-days-
of-anti-government-protests/. Accessed on July 9, 2009; M. Salazar, “Mineral-Rich
Highlands Lack Legal Protection,” Inter Press Service, November 30, 2010. Available
online at: http://www.ipsnews.net/2010/11/peru-mineral-rich-highlands-lack-
legal-protection/. Accessed on November 30, 2010; ABC, “Perú alcanzó cifra
histórico de concesiones para exploración minera en 2010,” ABC, February 7, 2011.
Available online at: www.abc.es. Accessed on February 9, 2011.
826 C. Stauffer and T. Cespedes, “Peru’s presidential field split over mining taxes,”
Reuters, March 17, 2011. Available online at: http://www.reuters.com/article/
Notes 343
us-peru-election-mining-idUSTRE72G6V720110317. Accessed on April 14, 2011;

A. Páez, “Mining Firms Alarmed at Election of Leftist Governor,” Inter Press Service,
November 11, 2010. Available online at: http://www.ipsnews.net/2010/11/peru-
mining-firms-alarmed-at-election-of-leftist-governor/. Accessed on November 18,
2010.
827 D. Hill, “Peru Now Has a ‘Licence to Kill’ Environmental Protesters,” Guardian, June
29, 2014. Available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-
the-amazon/2014/jun/29/peru-licence-to-kill-environmental-protestors. Accessed
on March 2, 2015.
828 Mining Watch, “Newsletter 27,” Ottawa: Mining Watch, Winter 2009–10. Available
online at: www.miningwatch.ca. Accessed on March 1, 2010; A. Paez, “Peru: Three
Days of Anti-Government Protests;” R. Zibechi, “Peru: Un año de Bagua, nuevos
actors frente a un Estado en crisis,” América Latina en Movimiento, June 16, 2010.
Available online at: http://alainet.org/active/38929&lang=es. Accessed on March
1, 2015.
829 Day quoted in Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Trade Agreement with Peru
Opens Doors to Latin America,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
June 18, 2009.
830 Peruvian government official quoted in Mining Watch, “Newsletter 27.”
831 R. Escobar, “Small-scale miners’ protest turns deadly,” Latin America Press, April 23,
2010. Available online at: http://www.lapress.org/articles.asp?art=6110. Accesssed
on April 29, 2010.
832 N. Mapstone, “Peru halts drive against illegal gold miners,” Financial Times, March 2,
2011. Available online at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/056af080-44e4-11e0-a8c6-
00144feab49a.html#axzz3vzndWmJV. Accessed on March 3, 2011.
833 Agence France-Presse, “Peruvians protest presence of Canadian mining company,”
Edmonton Journal, May 26, 2011. Available online at: www.edmontonjournal.com.
Accessed on May 26, 2011; Al Jazeera, “Peru halts mine project after protesters
shot,” Al Jazeera, June 25, 2011. Available online at: http://www.aljazeera.com/
news/americas/2011/06/201162535356326164.html. Accessed on June 25, 2011;
Bear Creek ceo quoted in M. Allan, “Peruvians protest against Bear Creek’s Santa
Ana,” Northern Miner, June 6–12, 2011, p. B4; the Canadian embassy is quoted in
Canadian Embassy in Peru, “Bear Creek Mining Corporation, Santa Ana Project,
Puno, Peru,” Lima, Peru: Canadian Embassy, date unknown, Access to Information,
file A-2012-00533.
834 R. Carroll, “Peru’s tribal groups chide president for vetoing rainforest law,” Guardian,
June 24, 2010. Available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/
jun/24/peru-president-blocks-conservation-law. Accessed on July 6, 2010.
835 Lust, “Peru: Mining Capital and Social Resistance,” p. 209.
836 Ibid., p. 211.
837 R. Zibechi, “Peru: Resistencia en los Andes a la minería,” América Latina en Movimiento,
March 11, 2013. Available online at: http://alainet.org/active/62367&lang=es.
838 J. Luis Duárez Mendoza, “Conflictos socioambientales en el Perú neoliberal,”
Obervatorio Social de América Latina, 13, 32, 2012, p. 186.
839 La Jornada, “Oposición en Perú a las transnacionales mineras,” La Jornada, April 8,

2013. Available online at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/04/08/eco-o.html.
840 C. Dumbrille, “The risks of gold mining in Peru,” Northern Miner, April 23–29, 2012,
p. 4.
841 Zibechi, “Peru: Resistencia en los Andes a la minería.”
842 Ibid.
843 L. Taylor, “Environmentalism and Social Protest: The Contemporary Anti-Mining
Mobilization in the Province of San Marcos and Condebamba Valley, Peru,” Journal
of Agrarian Change, 11, 3, 2011, p. 424.
844 A. Emery, “Peru to Request Hochschild, Hudbay Suspend Mining Activity,”
Business Week, February 9, 2012. Available online at: http://www.bloomberg.com/
news/articles/2012-02-09/peru-to-request-hochschild-hudbay-suspend-mining-
activity-1-. Accessed on January 1, 2016.
845 I. Bickis, “Mid-tier producers grapple with Peru’s growing pains,” Northern Miner,
June 25–July 1, 2012, p. B2.
846 Indigenous activist quoted in Amazon Watch, “Talisman Energy Withdraws from
Peruvian Amazon,” Amazon Watch, September 13, 2012. Available online at: http://
amazonwatch.org/news/2012/0913-talisman-energy-withdraws-from-peruvian-
amazon. Accessed on September 14, 2012.
847 Reuters, “One dead, four injured in clash near Barrick Gold’s Peru mine,” Reuters,
September 20, 2012. Available online at: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/
idAFBRE88J15W20120920. Accessed on September 20, 2012.
848 J. Vybiral, “Amazon Indians unite against Canadian oil giant,” Survival International,
March 14, 2013. Available online at: http://www.survivalinternational.org/
news/9023. Accessed on March 22, 2013.
849 R. Zibechi, “Guerra minera en los Andes peruanos,” La Jornada, March 8, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/03/08/opinion/027a2pol.
850 J. Martínez Alier, “Referendos mineros locales: Kañaris, en Perú,” La Jornada,
February 22, 2013. Available online at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/02/22/
opinion/025a1pol. Accessed on March 1, 2015.
851 L. Mulvany, “Candente Copper Falls After Mining Veto in Peru,” Bloomberg, October 2,
2012. Available online at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-10-02/
candente-copper-falls-after-mining-veto-in-peru. Accessed on October 4, 2012;
mac, “Peru: Blockade at Cañariaco Norte project,” mac: Mines and Communities,
December 6, 2012. Available online at: http://www.minesandcommunities.org/
article.php?a=12047. Accessed on December 13, 2012; Associated Press, “Clash
at Canadian-owned Peru mine leaves at least 4 hurt,” cbc News, January 25, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/clash-at-canadian-owned-peru-
mine-leaves-at-least-4-hurt-1.1381767. Accessed on February 1, 2013; La República,
“Minera canadiense Candente Copper suspende actividades en Cañariaco,” La
República, May 18, 2013. Available online at: http://larepublica.pe/18-05-2013/
minera-canadiense-candente-copper-suspende-actividades-en-canariaco. Accessed
on May 20, 2013.
Notes 345
852 Zibechi, “Guerra minera en los Andes peruanos.”

853 R. Zibechi, “Peru: Resistencia en los Andes a la minería.”
854 A. Foster, “Peru’s defence minister invited to Canada, says vice foreign minister,”
Embassy, October 31, 2012, p. 16; Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Minister
Ablonczy to Lead Trade Mission to Peru, Colombia and Panama,” Ottawa: Foreign
Affairs and International Trade, November 9, 2012.
855 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird meets
with Peru’s President, Ollanta Humala,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, February 18, 2013.
856 Guardian, “U.S. embassy cables: Mining companies worried about security,”
Guardian, January 31, 2011. Available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/
world/us-embassy-cables-documents/38881. Accessed on February 2, 2011.
857 A. Bebbington et al., Mining and Development in Peru, London: Peru Support Group,
2007.
858 K. Keenan, “Canadian Mining: Still Unaccountable,” nacla Report on the Americas,
May/June, 2010, pp. 29–31.
859 N. Sabourin, “Pérou: les élections régionales et locales laissent entrevoir une campagne
présidentielle mouvementée en 2011,” Lima: Canadian Embassy, October 14, 2010,
860 Stauffer and Cespedes, “Peru’s presidential field split over mining taxes”; M. Salazar,
“Resistance to Increasing Mining Royalties,” Inter Press Service, December 10,
2010. Available online at: http://www.ipsnews.net/2010/12/peru-resistance-to-
increasing-mining-royalties/. Accessed on December 16, 2012; Reuters, “Peru miners
say campaign talk deters investors,” Reuters, March 9, 2011. Available online at: http://
www.reuters.com/article/peru-mining-investment-idUSN0922794420110309.
861 C. Donville and A. Emery, “Toledo Pledges ‘No Surprises’ for Foreign Metal Miners
in Peru,” Bloomberg, December 2, 2010. Available online at: http://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2010-12-02/peru-president-candidate-toledo-pledges-no-
surprises-for-foreign-miners. Accessed on December 9, 2010.
862 Reuters, “Peru front-runner Humala aims to assuage investors,” Reuters, April
3, 2011. Available online at: http://www.reuters.com/article/peru-election-
idUSN0330201620110403. Accessed on April 4, 2011.
863 U.S. Embassy in Lima, “Ollanta Humala Claims He Can Save Peru from Extremists,”
June 26, 2008, released from //wikileaks.ch Feburary 20, 2011, accessed March 1,
2011.
864 Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, “Peru-Canada Mineral Resources
Reform Project,” Development Project Browser, project n. A031548-001.
865 Prime Minister’s Office, “Canada Supports Economic Growth Through Conflict
Prevention in Peru,” Ottawa: Prime Minister’s Office, November 12, 2011.
866 Prime Minister’s Office, “Prime Minister Stephen Harper Announces Support
for Development and Sustainable Economic Growth in Peru,” Lima, Peru: Prime
Minister’s Office, May 22, 2013.
867 L. Berthiaume, “Questions raised as Canada moves to help Peru streamline
environmental assessments for mining projects,” Canada.com, May 22, 2013. Available
online at: http://o.canada.com/business/questions-raised-as-canada-moves-to-help-

peru-streamline-environmental-assessments-for-mining-projects. Accessed on May
23, 2013.
868 R. Arnold, “Mining, cida partnership in Peru is pacification program, not
development,” Embassy, March 5, 2012. Available online at: http://m.embassynews.
ca/news/2012/03/05/mining-cida-partnership-in-peru-is-pacification-program-
not-development/42195. Accessed on March 6, 2012.
869 Canadian International Development Agency, “Minister Oda announces initiatives to
increase the benefits of natural resources management for people in Africa and South
America,” September 29, 2011. Available online at: www.acdi-cida.gc.ca. Accessed
870 Personal interview, Quito, July 14, 2010.
871 See, among others, M. Becker, Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern
Indigenous Movements, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008; Becker,
Pachakutik: Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador, Second edition,
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012.
872 Gutiérrez, of the Patriotic Society Party (PSP), had run his 2002 electoral campaign
on an anti-neoliberal platform but immediately capitulated to the neoliberal policy
prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund once in office. conaie supported
the party’s election and even provided ministers for the government’s first cabinet,
although within seven months the rapidly intensifying rupture between the
indigenous movement and the now evidently neoliberal Gutiérrez had been formally
played out with the resignation of these ministers.
873 C. Conaghan, Restructuring Domination: Industrialists and the State in Ecuador,
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988, p. 6.
874 Ibid.
875 Privy Council Office, “Draft Intelligence Memorandum Ecuador: Leftist Wins
the Presidency,” Ottawa: Privy Council Office, November 29, 2006, Access to
876 W. Wagner, “Mining list/Table,” Ottawa: nrcan, April 29, 2008, Access to
Information—nrcan, file DC7040-11-308.
877 El Diario, “Ecuador firma contratos petroleros con empresas de EEUU, Argentina y
Canadá,” El Diario, February 5, 2012. Available online at: www.eldiario.com. Accessed
878 W. Sacher and A. Acosta, La minería a gran escala en Ecuador: Amálisis y datos
estadísticos sobre la minería industrial en el Ecuador, Quito: Abya Yala, 2012, pp. 30–31.
879 Canadian Embassy in Quito, “Roundtable with Representatives of Most Active
Canadian Mining and Oil and Gas Companies with Operations in Ecuador,” Quito:
Canadian Embassy, Tuesday, May 18, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-
02402; Council for Responsible Mining, “Update on the reactivation process for
Exploration and Mining activity by Canadian Companies in Ecuador,” Quito: Council
for Responsible Mining, August 23, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01197.
880 R. Kuffner, “Pull-Aside With Ecuador Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño at the oas
General Assembly,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, specific date
unknown, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-02402.
Notes 347
881 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ecuador Country Strategy Process 2008–09,
Quito: Canadian Embassy, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2010-02401.
882 Press Association, “Ecuador Restates Support for Julian Assange on Asylum
Anniversary,” Guardian, August 16, 2013. Available online at: http://www.
theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/16/ecuador-julian-assange-asylum-anniversary.
Accessed on September 7, 2013; Democracy Now, “Exclusive: Ecuador’s Foreign
Minister on Snowden Asylum and Latin American Resistance to U.S. Spying,”
Democracy Now, July 9, 2013. Available online at: http://www.democracynow.
org/2013/7/9/exclusive_ecuadors_foreign_minister_on_snowden. Accessed on
September 7, 2013.
883 Concerns about his relations with Chávez come out, for instance, in M. Pasquel,
“Chavez fifth visit to Ecuador,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, May 28, 2009, Access to
884 I. Harris, “Ecuador’s Mineral Crossroads: Canada’s Commitment?” Focal Point, June
2008, p. 4.
885 R. Dube, “Strong diplomatic presence benefits miners—iamgold—Regional,” BN
Americas, June 25, 2010. Available online at: http://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/
mining/Strong_diplomatic_presence_benefits_miners_-_iamgold. Accessed on
March 8, 2013.
886 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ecuador Country Strategy Process 2008–09.
887 F. Ramírez Gallegos, “Fragmentación, reflujo y desconcierto: Movimientos sociales y
cambio político en el Ecuador (2000–2010),” Observatorio Social de América Latina,
28, November 2010, pp. 28–32.
888 Ibid., pp. 38–39.
889 Personal interview, Quito, July 8, 2010.
890 Ibid.
891 Ibid.
892 G. Solano, “U.S. Closes Military Post in Ecuador,” Washington Post, September 19,
2009.
893 M. Unda, “Ecuador 2010: El año 4 de la Revolución Ciudadana,” Observatorio Social
de América Latina, 29, May, 2011, pp. 138.
894 For the most comprehensive critical reflections on the political economy of Correa’s
period in office, see A. Acosta, ed., El correísmo al desnudo, Quito: Montecristi Vive,
2013; P. Ospina Peralta, “‘Estamos hacienda mejor las cosas con el mismo modelo
antes que cambiarlo’: La revolución ciudadana en Ecuador (2007–2012),” in C. Arze, J.
Gómez, P. Ospina, V. Álvarez, eds., Cambios y continuidades en los gobiernos progresistas
de América Latina, La Paz: cedla, 2013, pp. 177–278.
895 Ramírez Gallegos, “Fragmentación, reflujo y doconcierto,” p. 41.
896 Unda, “Ecuador 2010,” p. 138.
897 Raúl Zibechi, “Ecuador: The Construction of a New Model of Domination,” Upside
Down World, August 5, 2011. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.org/
main/ecuador-archives-49/3152-ecuador-the-construction-of-a-new-model-of-
domination. Accessed on January 1, 2016.
898 Unda, “Ecuador 2010,” p. 138.
899 Raúl Zibechi, “Bolivia and Ecuador: The State against the Indigenous People,”
Americas Program, July 19, 2010.

900 Personal interview, Quito, 5 July, 2010.
901 P. Ospina Peralta, “La unidad de las izquierdas,” La Línea del Fuego, September 8,
2011.
902 eiu, Ecuador: Country Report, London: Economist Intelligence Unit, September,
2011, p. 13.
903 Personal interview, Quito, 10 August, 2011. ecuarunari is the acronym for “Ecuador
Runacunapac Riccharimui,” a Kichwa phrase meaning “awakening of the Ecuadorian
Indians.”
904 J. Paul Rathbone, “Bolivia and Ecuador Feel Political Heat,” Financial Times,
September 6, 2011. Available online at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3844369e-
d010-11e0-81e2-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3vzndWmJV. Accessed on August 4, 2013.
905 Associated Press, “Rafael Correa Re-Elected for Third Term as President of Ecuador,”
Guardian, February 18, 2013. Available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/
world/2013/feb/18/ecuador-election-rafael-correa-victory. Accessed on August 15,
2014; M. Becker, “Ecuador’s Rafael Correa Re-elected by a Wide Margin,” Upside
Down World, February 18, 2013. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.
org/main/ecuador-archives-49/4135-ecuadors-rafael-correa-re-elected-by-a-wide-
margin. Accessed on August 15, 2014.
906 See A. Acosta, Breve historia económica del Ecuador, segunda edición, novena
impresión, Quito: Corporación Editora Nacional, 2006.
907 M. Varela, “Las actividades extractivas en Ecuador,” Ecuador Debate, 79, April, 2010,
pp. 130–131.
908 W. Sacher and A. Acosta, La minería a gran escala en Ecuador: Análisis y datos estadísticos
sobre la minería industrial en el Ecuador, Quito: Abya Yala, 2012, p. 13.
909 Ibid., p. 14.
910 Ibid., p. 16.
911 Personal Interview, Quito, July 8, 2010.
912 X.S. Warnaars, “Why be Poor when We can be Rich? Constructing Responsible
Mining in El Pangui, Ecuador,” Resources Policy, 37, 2012, p. 227.
913 On the history of the Shuar’s confrontations with oil multinationals see S. Sawyer,
Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador,
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2004.
914 Warnaars, “Why Be Poor when We can Be Rich?” p. 227.
915 Ibid., p. 227.
916 K. Sunquist, “Canadian Mining Interests in Ecuador,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, January 24, 2007, Access to Information, file A-2009-0078.
917 A. Bebbington, D. Humphreys Bebbington, J. Bury, J. Lingan, J. Pablo Muñoz, and
M. Scurrah, “Mining and Social Movements: Struggles Over Livelihood and Rural
Territorial Development in the Andes,” World Development, 36, 12, 2008, p. 2894.
918 Ibid., p. 2898.
919 Ibid., p. 2899.
920 G. David Kuecker, “Fighting for the Forests: Grassroots Resistance to Mining in
Northern Ecuador,” Latin American Perspectives, 34, 2, 2007, p. 104.
921 Ibid., p. 104.
Notes 349
922 Ibid., p. 105.

923 Personal Interview, Quito, July 8, 2010.
924 Personal Interview, Quito, July 7, 2010. All subsequent quotations of Chicaiza are
drawn from this interview.
925 See Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, May 7, 2010. Available online at:
http://business-humanrights.org/en/canada-court-dismisses-ecuadorians-lawsuit-
against-copper-mesa-and-toronto-stock-exchange. Accessed on May 13, 2010; for
coverage of the dynamics of the initial lawsuit, see J. Moore, “Canadian Mining Firm
Financed Violence in Ecuador: Lawsuit,” The Tyee, March 3, 2009. Available online
at: http://thetyee.ca/News/2009/03/03/CanMining/. Accessed on March 4, 2009.
926 S. Latorre and A. Santillana, “Capitalismo estatal o convergencia popular,” Íconos, 34,
2009, pp. 14–17.
927 Canadian Embassy Quito, Situation Report, Quito: Canadian Embassy, specific
date unknown, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-02389. It is not just mining
companies that have had difficulties, as RIM representatives visited the country in
early 2010 to push for the elimination of a newly-imposed 35 percent tariff on cell
phone imports. U.S. Embassy, “Ecuador Rebuffs International Companies on Balance
of Payments Safeguards,” Wikileaks, February 2, 2010. Available online at: wikileaks.
org. Accessed on January 10, 2012.
928 The last three quotes are from C. Lapointe, “RE: Ecuador Mining Update,” Quito:
Canadian Embassy, February 13, 2007, Access to Information, file A-2010-01187,
and Sunquist, “Canadian Mining Interests in Ecuador.” Our focus is largely on mining,
which clearly dominates the embassy’s strategic considerations during this period.
But the embassy also organized a seminar for the hydroelectric industry that included
Ecuador’s Minister of Electricity and the opportunity for Canadian companies to
sponsor the event and get their logo on invitations. Author unknown, “Reunión con
Embajador—Seminario Hidroeléctrico,” Quito: Ecaudorian-Canadian Chamber of
Commerce, August 6, 2008; and R. Kuffner, “Re: hidro seminar,” Quito: Canadian
Embassy, September 2, 2008, both Access to Information, file A-2010-01186.
Sponsoring embassy events would not appear to be uncommon, as companies from
the mining and oil and gas sectors and Quiport paid for the daytime Canada Day party
at the ambassador’s home as well as the evening piano concert he hosted. A. Shisko,
“Canada Day,” Quito: Canadian Embasy, June 13, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2010-01196.
929 Author unknown, “Re: Responsabilidad Social y Mineria—ceres y Embajada
de Canada,” Quito: Kinross Gold, February 13, 2008, Access to Information, file
A-2010-01198.
930 B. Tink, “RE: Ecuador Mining Update,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, February 13, 2007, Access to Information, file A-2010-01187.
931 M. Pasquel, “Ecuadorian Constitution Draft,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, November
932 Escopusa Noticias, “Asambleista Monica Chuji Denuncia Excesivo ‘Lobbying’
De Mineras Extranjeras,” Quito: Escopus Noticisas, February 5, 2008, Access to
933 Author unknown, “Mining and Community Development Social April 26,” Quito,
April 20, 2007, Access to Information, file A-2010-01191.

934 D. Clarke, “Community Development—Mining as a Tool for Development,” 2007,
Access to Information, file A-2010-01187. Clarke heads Clarke Educational Services
which, in consultant speak, “specializes in developing partnerships amongst diverse
stakeholder groups within the resource extraction industry.” Clarke Educational
Services and Wayne Dunn & Associates, “Ecuador Mining [title redacted]:
Building Strategic Plan and Proposal,” Quito: Ecuador, February 2, 2007, Access to
Information, file A-2010-01191
935 J. Moore and T. Velásquez, “Sovereignty Negotiated: Anti-Mining Movements, the
State and Multinational Mining Companies under Correa’s ‘21st Century Socialism’,”
in A. Bebbington, ed., Social Conflict, Economic Development and Extractive Industry:
Evidence from South America, London: Routledge, 2012, p. 118.
936 Ibid., p. 112.
937 Sacher and Acosta, La minería a gran escala en Ecuador, p. 18.
938 Ibid., p. 18.
939 Moore and Velásquez, “Sovereignty Negotiated,” p. 119.
940 Sacher and Actosta, La minería a gran escala en Ecuador, p. 20.
941 C. Lapointe, “Canadian Mining Interests at Serious Risk of Being Wiped-out for at
Least Six Months in Ecuador,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, April 17, 2008, Access to
942 C. Lapointe, “Re: From Quito,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, April 17, 2008, Access
943 Quoted in Moore and Velásquez, “Sovereignty negotiated,” p. 119.
944 Moore and Velásquez, “Sovereignty negotiated,” p. 119.
945 Ibid.
946 Ibid.
947 M. Hawkes, “Strategic Planning Session for Upcoming Meeting with Vice-Minister
of International Commerce, Eduardo Egas,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, March 27,
948 Y. Obiri-Yeboah, “Memorandum for Decision,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, April 25, 2008; R. Valdez, “Report Second Coordination Meeting
for Ecuadorian-Canadian interests,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, April 29, 2008; M.
Hawkes, “Canada-Ecuador fipa Consultations,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, June 5,
2008. All documents are from Access to Information, file A-2009-00778
949 C. Lapointe, “Messages brought to Correa today by Ambassador Lapointe,” Quito:
Canadian Embassy, June 24, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2010-01194;
Author unknown, “Re: Ricardo,” Quito: EcuaCorriente, April 28, 2009, Access to
Information, file A-2010-01186. In fact, the possibility of using investor-dispute
mechanism in the fipa was discussed on a number of occasions by the embassy and
companies, with input from Ottawa. It seems as though this option was shelved as
it became clear that Correa was, in the end, more than willing to negotiate with the
Canadians. R. Kuffner, “Canada’s fipa with Ecuador Really Matters,” Quito: Canadian
Embassy, November 12, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2009-0078.
950 Author unknown, “Talking points for Canadian mining industry meeting with
President Correa,” Quito: Aurelian Resources, April 24, 2008, Access to Information,
Notes 351
file A-2010-01198.
951 Moore and Velásquez, “Sovereignty negotiated,” p. 120; Ecuadorian official quoted
in J. Spicer and A. Soto, “Ecuador reassures miners,” Globe and Mail, April 26, 2008,
p. B3.
952 Author unknown, “Update on the Situation in Ecuador, “Embassy in Quito: specific
date uknown, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2008-00052.
953 Author unknown, “Canadian Mining Companies in Ecuador: discussion points
with Government of Canada,” Quito: Aurelian Resources, August 5, 2008, Access
954 Canadian Embassy Quito, Situation Report, Quito: Canadian Embassy, specific date
unknown, 2010.
955 Sunquist, “Canadian Mining Interests in Ecuador.”
956 C. Lapointe, “Official visit to Ecuador of Canada’s Minister of International Trade,”
Quito: Canadian Embassy, August 1, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2010-01194.
The first quote is from Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Minister Fortier to
Visit Mexico, Panama and Ecuador,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
August 11, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2010-01186. The second is from R.
Kuffner, “Visit to Ecuador by the Minister of International Trade,” Quito: Canadian
Embassy, August 25, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2009-00778.
957 Author uknown, “Roundtable with Canadian/Ecuadorian Investors,” location and
specific date unknown, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2010-01186.
958 Kuffner, “Visit to Ecuador by the Minister of International Trade.”
959 R. Kuffner, “GLD Visit to Ecuador,” Quito: Canadian Embasy, December 30, 2008,
960 R. Kuffner, “RE: NUNA,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, October 24, 2008, Access to
961 “Whole-of-government” refers to integrating different parts of the state apparatus
together for a common foreign policy goal. It has been touted by the Conservatives
under Stephen Harper, and the language was used in Afghanistan (along with the
“three Ds”: defense, diplomacy and develoment).
962 The first two quotes are from R. Kuffner, “Request for Meeting,” Quito: Canadian
Embassy, November 24, 2008, the third is from Kuffner, “Meetings with nrcan
and DFAIT in Ottawa,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, November 25, 2008, Access to
963 The discussion is in emails exchanged in early October of 2008, though almost the
entire discussion is redacted. Access to Information, file A-2010-01186.
964 J. Moore, personal communication, July 25, 2011. Quote is from R. Valdez, “Follow
up meeting with group of Canadian mining companies,” Quito: Canadian Embassy,
April 25, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2009-0078.
965 Valdez, “Follow up meeting with group of Canadian mining companies.”
966 Ibid.
967 R. Kuffner, “Promising Days and Sleepless Nights for Canadian Mining Companies in
Ecuador,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, October 9, 2008; R. Kuffner, “Ecuador Mining
Update,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, November 27, 2009. Both documents are from
Access to Information, file A-2009-0078. The possible disjuncture between Correa
and the Minister of Mines and Petroleum is discussed in embassy reports. One report
mentions it in the context of James Lambert’s visit in December 2008, when he raised
the matter with the presidential advisor on mining, who acknowledged that the
Ministry “does not seem to fully understand the President’s (positive) intentions…
and that this is something that the President’s office will need to clarify.” It seems, as
we noted, that there were greater reservations in the Ministry than the President’s
office regarding how investor-friendly the new law should be, and the Canadians were
frustrated with the “mixed signals,” which likely contributed to the “ambiguity” we
have discussed. R. Kuffner, “GLD Visit to Ecuador.”
968 J. Moore, “Canada Throws Ecuador into Reverse,” The Tyee, July 11, 2008. Available
online at: http://thetyee.ca/News/2008/07/11/CanMining/. Accessed on July 12,
2008.
969 Moore and Velásquez, “Sovereignty Negotiated,” p. 125.
970 Sacher and Acosta, La minería a gran escala en Ecuador, p. 21.
971 Ibid., p. 22.
972 R. Kuffner, “Ecuadorian Mining Law Approved by Congress, Few Steps Remain,”
Quito: Canadian Embassy, January 21, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2009-0078.
President of the Chamber of Mines quoted in this document as well.
973 Quoted in Moore and Velásquez, “Sovereignty negotiated,” p. 127.
974 National Post, “Canadian miners can restart in Ecuador,” National Post, March 18,
2009, p. FP6; “Cornerstone Reports Significant Progress on Ecuador Permits,” May
17, 2010. Available online at: ca.news.finance.yahoo.com. Accessed on May 26, 2010.
975 Kuffner, “Pull-Aside With Ecuador Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño at the oas
General Assembly,” (Quito: Canadian Embassy, August 24, 2009) Access to
Information, file A-2010-02402. It is clear that there are also personal relations
between embassy staff, including the ambassador, and mining executives and their
families. After an iamgold executive organized a visit to company’s mine sites in
Quimsacocha and San Gerardo in early 2010, the ambassador wrote to thank him
for the trip, to express his pleasure for the executive and his wife having attended
an Olympic launch party hosted by the ambassador and to remind him—though
such a reminder was likely unnecessary—“Please do not hesitate to let me know if
the Embassy or I can be of assistance with some strategic and timely interventions
and messaging with Ecuadorian government or local officials.” A. Shisko, “Visit to
Quimsacocha,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, February 18, 2010, Access to Information,
file A-2010-01192. See also endnote 997 about the Canada Day piano concert hosted
by the ambassador at his house in which various executives attended.
976 Author unknown, “Preliminary results of Presidential and General Elections,” Quito:
Canadian Embassy, April 27, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-02391.
977 S. Sereda, “Information Template for Meeting with President Correa of the Republic
of Ecuador,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, February 12, 2009,
978 El Comercio, “Ecuador desea la inversíon de Canadá,” El Comercio, February 17,
2009. Available online at: www.elcomercio.com. Accessed on March 15, 2009.
979 R. Kuffner, “Please update your company profile for President Correa,” Quito:
Canadian Embassy, July 4, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01193.
Notes 353
980 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Minister Day Promotes Canadian Business
in Ecuador.”
981 Quote is from R. Kuffner, “Minister Day Visit to Ecuador August 23–24, 2009,”
Quito: Canadian Embassy, September 10, 2009, Access to Information, file 2009-
0078. Author unknown, “Thanksgiving Dinner,” Quito: Ecuador-Canada Chamber
of Commerce, September 30, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01185; R.
Kuffner, “RE: Ecuador Delegation,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, October 7, 2009,
982 A. Shisko, “msfa visit,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, August 23, 2010, Access to
983 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “List of Businesspeople and Civil Society
Members that Minister of State (Americas) Kent Met With During a Visit to Quito,
August 19–20, 2010,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, date unknown,
Access to Information, file A-2010-01157; Author unknown, “Roundtable with Club
of Canadian Investors,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, specific date unknown, 2010,
984 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Bilateral Meeting With Ecuador President
Rafael Correa,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, specific date
unknown, 2010; Kuffner, “With Ecuador Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño at the oas
General Assembly.” Both briefs are from Access to Information, file A-2010-02402.
985 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Meeting With Ecuador,” specific date
unknown, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-02389.
986 K. Stirling, “Meeting at pdac,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
February 26, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01193; R. Valdez, “Ecuadorian
Delegation to pdac 2009,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, April 21, 2009, Access to
987 Author redacted, “meeting with [redacted],” Quito: Kinross, November 28, 2009,
988 R. Valdez, “Report Participation and Activities of the Government of Ecuador’s
Delegation to pdac,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, April 9, 2010, Access to Information,
file A-2010-02402.
989 R. Valdez, “Resultados y expectativas de la visita al pdac 2010,” Quito: Canadian
Embassy, March 18, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-2400.
990 J. Yared, “Meeting to Discuss a National Training Plan for Ecuador’s Mining Sector,”
Quito: Canadian Embassy, July 26, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-02402.
991 R. Kuffner, “RE: training plan for Ecuador ministry officials,” Quito: Canadian
Embasy, July 22, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01196.
992 R. Valdez, “UBC Geology in Ecuador,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, May 1, 2008,
993 Correa quotation is transcribed at: http://www.incakolanews.blogspot.ca/2009/02/
studmuffin-heart-canada.html. Accessed February 18, 2013.
994 Boivin, “oas and Aboriginal Cooperation With Ecuador,” Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, specific date unknown, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2010-02402; I. Ross, “Former First Nation Chief becomes face of Canadian
mining,” Northern Ontario Business, March 1, 2012. Available online at: http://www.
northernontariobusiness.com/Industry-News/aboriginal-businesses/Former-First-
Nation-chief-becomes-face-of-Canadian-mining.aspx. Accessed on April 26, 2013.
995 R. Kuffner, “Potential Visit to Kinross Mine in Canada,” Quito: Canadian Embassy,
January 9, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01197.
996 All quotes from C. Lapointe, “Meeting with Vice-Minister of International Trade
Eduardo egas pena,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, January 26, 2009, Access to
997 E. Clarke, “Meeting Note for Minister of International Trade—Mining Authorizations
for Canadian Companies,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, October
998 S. Silva, “Ecuador wants higher royalties from U.S., Canadian miners,” Reuters, May
26, 2011. Available online at: http://www.reuters.com/article/ecuador-mines-
idUSN2623921620110526. Accessed on June 2, 2011.
999 El Comercio, “Embajador de Canadá: Impuestos mineros muy elevados,” El Comercio,
July 4, 2012. Available online at: http://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/negocios/
embajador-de-canada-impuestos-mineros.html. Accessed on April 28, 2013.
1000 A. Araujo, “Dos escenarios parar la reforma minera,” El Comercio, October 25, 2012.
Available online at: http://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/negocios/escenarios-
reforma-minera.html. Accessed on January 22, 2013. Burt is quoted in A. Valencia,
“Kinross, Ecuador gold mine talks hit impasse,” Financial Post, February 17, 2012.
Available online at: http://business.financialpost.com/investing/kinross-ecuador-
gold-mine-talks-hit-impasse. Accessed on February 17, 2012.
1001 L. Saavedra, “Legislative reforms favor mining companies,” Latin America Press,
August 16, 2012. Available online at: http://www.lapress.org/articles.asp?art=6688.
1002 Mineweb, “iamgold not ‘bailing’ on multimillion ounce Ecuador gold project,”
Mineweb, June 22, 2012. Available online at: http://www.mineweb.com/archive/
iamgold-not-bailing-on-multimillion-ounce-ecuador-gold-project/. Accessed on
June 12, 2012.
1003 See S. Santacruz, “Firms See Stability as Correa Rebuffs conaie,” Ecuador Mining
News, October 16, 2008. Available online at: www.ecuadorminingnews.com. Accessed
on November 1, 2008. This article discusses the response of Canadian companies to
the new constitution.
1004 Reuters, “Kinross Gold gets Ecuador green light,” Reuters, March 11, 2009. Available
online at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mining-summit-kinross-ecuador-
idUSTRE52A47M20090311. Acccessed on October 19, 2010.
1005 Quoted in J. Moore, “Ecuador: Small-Scale Miners Questioning Large-Scale Interests
in Southern Amazon,” Upside Down World, September 22, 2010. Available online
at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2703-ecuador-small-
scale-miners-questioning-large-scale-interests-in-southern-amazon-. Accessed on
September 22, 2010.
1006 R. Valdez, “Conflict and Controversy as Illegal Miners Come to Terms with the
Law,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, September 23, 2010, Access to Information, file
A-2010-02402.
1007 Latin America Press, “Military dismantles illegal mines,” Latin America Press, June
Notes 355
2, 2011. Available online at: http://lapress.org/articles.asp?art=6391. Accessed on

June 14, 2011.
1008 J. Moore, “Ecuador’s Fickle Friend,” Dominion, December 6, 2010. Available online
at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2812-ecuadors-fickle-
friend-. Accessed on December 6, 2010. See also C. Reyes, “Se debate de denuncia
del Convenio con Canadá,” Radio Sucre, July 21, 2011. Available online at: www.
radiosucre.com.ec. Accessed on July 27, 2011.
1009 El Comercio, “‘Buscamos protección a la inversión,” El Comercio, March 3, 2012.
Available online at: http://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/negocios/buscamos-
proteccion-a-inversion.html. Accessed on March 4, 2012.
1010 J. Taba, “Background Briefing on cida Programming in Ecuador,” Ottawa: cida,
September 21, 2009, Access to Information-cida, file A-2010-00388.
1011 L. Lévesque, Memorandum of Information to Minister of International Trade:
Canada’s Bilateral Cooperation Program With Ecuador,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, date unknown, Access to Information-cida, file A-2010-00388.
1012 Canadian Embassy, Quito, “Bilateral Consultations Report,” Quito: Canadian
Embassy, September 17, 2009, Access to Information-cida, file A-2010-00388.
1013 J. Tabah, “Next Steps in Ecuador for cida,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, November 27, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2010-00389.
1014 El Comercio, “‘Buscamos protección a la inversión.”
1015 Canadian Embassy, Quito, “Bilateral Consultations Report.”
1016 Author unknown, “Invest Ecuador,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
December 6, 2010, Access to Information Request, file 2010-02389.
1017 S. Fernandes, Who Can Stop the Drums? Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s
Venezuela, Durham: Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 13–15.
1018 J. Rivera, “Lo irreversible y Hugo Chávez,” La Jornada, March 10, 2013.
1019 G. Ciccariello-Maher, “Preparing for a Post-Chávez Venezuela,” Counterpunch,
March 6, 2013. Available online at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/06/
preparing-for-a-post-chavez-venezuela/. Accessed on April 15, 2013.
1020 La Jornada, “Cronología de la última batalla del líder venezolano,” La Jornada, March
5, 2013.
1021 Canadian Embassy in Caracas, “Country Strategy—Venezuela 2006–07,” Caracas:
Canadian Embassy, January 22, 2006, Access to Information, file A-2010-02394.
1022 Canadian Embassy in Caracas, “Country Strategy—Venezuela 2008–09,” Canadian
Embassy: Caracas, December 19, 2007, Access to Information, file A-2010-02403.
1023 N. Crooks and J. Orozco, “World Bank Court Rules for Venezuela in Gold Mining
Case,” Bloomberg, January 18, 2013. Available online at: http://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2013-01-18/world-bank-court-rules-for-venezuela-in-mining-
case-correct-. Accessed on May 24, 2013; Canada, Application of the Government
of Canada for Standing as a Non-Disputing Party, Arbitration Under the Additional
Facility Rules of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes,
August 7, 2006, Access to Information, file A-2008-00057.
1024 F. Taylor, “Crystallex’s Venezuelan road not necessarily paved with gold,” Globe and
Mail, March 27, 2007, p. B14; Globe and Mail, “Venezuelan ruling hits Crystallex,”
Globe and Mail, May 1, 2008, p. B3; A. Hoffman, “Venezuela’s bid to boost gold
reserves bad news for Crystallex,” Globe and Mail, November 16, 2008, p. B1; National
Post, “Venezuela, China to develop Cristina,” National Post, February 25, 2012, FP4;
D. Ebner, “Crystallex loses control of Venezuela gold mining project,” Globe and Mail,
February 8, 2011, p. B11; P. Luke, “investors remain wary of Venezuelan contract’s
veracity,” The Province, June 14, 2006, p. A41; National Post, “Crystallex files for
bankruptcy; TSX to delist firm,” National Post, December 24, 2011, p. F2.
1025 L. Macleod, “Venezuela lets in Canadian miner,” National Post, March 29, 2007, p.
FP1; The Province, “Gold Reserve squeezed out,” The Province, May 26, 2009, p. A20.
1026 M. Morin and L. Edwards, Mandate Letter to Perry Calderwood, Ambassador
of Canada to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, December 27, 2007.
1027 Canadian Embassy in Caracas, “Country Strategy—Venezuela 2007–08,” Caracas:
Canadian Embassy, January 18, 2007, Access to Information, file A-2010-02394.
1028 Canadian Embassy in Caracas, “Country Strategy—Venezuela 2006–07.”
1029 Ruta, “PetroAmérica Initiative,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
specific date unknown, 2007, Access to Information, file A-2008-00058.
1031 The quote is from Canadian Embassy in Port-au-Prince, “Visit of Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez (sic) to Haiti,” Canadian Embassy: Port-au-Prince, March
14, 2007, Access to Information, file A-2008-00058; Author unknown, “Venezuela,”
origin unknown: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, date unknown, Access to
Parliament, 3rd Session, Ottawa: March 21, 2011, p. 18.
1033 Intelligence Assessment Secretariat, Untitled Report (Ottawa: Privy Council Office,
April 2, 2007). Access to Information, file A-2008-00058.
1034 Rory Carroll was for a number of years the Guardian’s correspondent in Venezuela.
He is the author of Comandante: Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, New York: The Penguin
Press, 2013.
1035 R. Carroll, “Hugo Chávez: An Elected Autocrat,” New Statesman, January 30,
2013. Available online at: http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/south-
america/2013/01/elected-autocrat. Accessed on January 16, 2014.
1036 For good historical context and analytical summaries of the rise and trajectory of the
Bolivarian process in Venezuela, see the following. S. Ellner, Rethinking Venezuelan
Politics: Class, Conflict and the Chávez Phenomenon, Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2009; S.
Fernandes, Who Can Stop the Drums? Urban Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela,
Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010; G. Ciccariello-Maher, We Created
Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution, Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 2013; G. Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History
and Policies of the Chávez Governernment, London: Verso, 2007; M. Gonzalez, Hugo
Chávez: Socialist for the Twenty-First Century, London: Pluto, 2014; S. Spronk and
J.R. Webber, “From Sabaneta to Miraflores: The Afterlives of Hugo Chávez,” New
Politics, 56, Winter, 2014.
1037 G. Ciccariello-Maher discusses the popular notion within Venezuelan social
movements that they made Chávez, rather than the reverse, in We Created Chávez,
Notes 357
2013.
1038 R. Carroll, “In the End, an Awful Manager,” New York Times, March 5, 2013. Available
online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/opinion/in-the-end-chavez-was-
an-awful-manager.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. Accessed on January 16, 2014.
1039 K. Johnson, “Obama Reacts to Chávez Death,” Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2013.
Available online at: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324
678604578342880614535550?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.
com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424127887324678604578342880614535550.html.
1040 M. Blanchfield, “Venezuela Slams Harper for ‘Blunt, Insensitive, Impertinent’
Remarks on Hugo Chávez’s Death,” National Post, March 7, 2013. Available online
at: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/07/venezuela-slams-harper-for-blunt-
insensitive-impertinent-remarks-on-hugo-chavezs-death/. Accessed on January 16,
2014.
1041 Canadian Press, “Chávez’s Death Brings Hope of a Better Future for Venezuela:
PM Harper,” The Globe and Mail, March 5, 2013. Available online at: http://www.
theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/chavezs-death-brings-hope-of-a-better-future-
for-venezuela-pm-harper/article9321008/. Accessed on January 16, 2014.
1042 The Economist, “Italy’s Election: Ungovernability Wins,” The Economist, March 2,
2013. Available online at: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21572783-
result-has-come-bombshell-italy-and-across-euro-zone-ungovernability-wins.
1043 Carroll, “In the End, an Awful Manager.”
1044 Ibid.
1045 M. Weisbrot, “Why the U.S. Demonises Venezuela’s Democracy,” Guardian, October
3, 2012. Available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/
oct/03/why-us-dcemonises-venezuelas-democracy. Accessed on January 16, 2014.
1046 Ibid.
1047 G. Grandin, “On the Legacy of Hugo Chávez,” The Nation, March 5, 2013. Available
online at: http://www.thenation.com/article/173212/legacy-hugo-chavez. Accessed
on January 16, 2014.
1048 Weisbrot, “Why the U.S. Demonises Venezuela’s Democracy.”
1049 Ibid.
1050 One of the authors, Jeffery R. Webber, has conducted fieldwork in Venezuela on
various, extended occasions between 2008 and 2013.
1051 I. James, “Venezuela Oil Production Growth: Chávez Presidency May Have Squandered
Oil Riches,” Huffington Post, September 23, 2012. Available online at: http://www.
huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/23/venezuela-oil-production_n_1907170.html.
1052 M. Weisbrot and J. Johnston, Venezuela’s Economic Recovery: Is it Sustainable?
Washington, D.C.: Center for Economic and Policy Research, September 2012, pp.
7, 10; eiu, Venezuela: Country Report, London: Economist Intelligence Unit, March
2013, p. 8
1053 The social programs are discussed in G. Wilpert, Changing Venezuela By Taking Power:
The History and Policies of the Chávez Government, London: Verso, 2006; and I. Bruce,
The Real Venezuela, London: Pluto, 2009. On the variegated forms of popular power
in the urban peripheries of Caracas see S. Fernandes, Who Can Stop the Drums? Urban
Social Movements in Chávez’s Venezuela, Durham and London: Duke University
Press, 2010; G. Ciccariello-Maher, We Created Chávez, Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 2013; and D. Azzellini, “Constituent Power in Motion: Ten Years
of Transformation in Venezuela,” Socialism and Democracy, 24, 2, 2010, pp. 8–31.
1054 Weisbrot and Johnston, Venezuela’s Economic Recovery, p. 26.
1056 U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, “Canada and the Americas,” Ottawa: U.S. Embassy, April
15, 2009, Wikileaks. Available online at: www.wikileaks.org. Accessed on September
21, 2011; Author Uknown, “Bilateral With Venezuela,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs
and International Trade, date uknown, Access to Information, file A-2008-00058;
Author unknown, “Meeting With Foreign Minister Nicolas (sic) Maduro,” Ottawa:
Foreign Affairs and International Trade, date unknown, Access to Information, file
A-2010-01155.
1057 S. Harper, “Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper,” Latin Business Chronicle,
October 1, 2008. Available online at: www.latinbusinesschronicle.com. Accessed
on May 1, 2008.
1058 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Concerned over Venezuelan
Suspension of TV Stations,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, January
28, 2010.
1059 K. Janicke and J. Sugget, “Venezuela Sanctions Cable Television Channels for Failure
to Complyl with Media Law,” Venezuelanalysis, January 25, 2010. Available online at:
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5101. Accessed on January 16, 2014.
1060 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Expresses Concern over Venezuela’s
Arrest of Oswald Álvarez Paz,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, March
25, 2010.
1061 F. Rosales, “Venezuela’s Oswaldo Álvarez Paz Found Guilty of Spreading
False Information,” Venezuelanalysis, July 14, 2011. Available online at: http://
venezuelanalysis.com/news/6353. Accessed on January 16, 2014.
1062 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Minister of State Kent to Visit Venezuela
and Bolivia,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, January 19, 2010.
1063 Personal communication with Eleanor Johnston, February 9, 2010.
1064 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Minister Ablonczy Statement on Venezuela’s
Presidential Election,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, October 8,
2012.
1065 T. Pearson, “Another Trade Union Leader Murdered in Aragua State,” Venezuelanalysis,
April 28, 2010. Available online at: http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5314.
1066 Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign
Affairs and International Development, 1st Session, 41st Parliament, Ottawa: April
18, 2013, l. 1355.
1067 K. Carlson, “Death of a revolutionary,” Globe and Mail, March 6, 2013, pp. A1, A10.
1068 Globe and Mail, “The polarizing appeal of Chavez (sic),” Globe and Mail, March 6,
2013, p. A8.
Notes 359
1069 Ibid.
1070 Globe and Mail, “Chavez’s (sic) gifts failed to serve democracy,” Globe and Mail,
March 6, 2013, p. A14.
1071 G. Saunders, “Hugo Chavez (sic) had nothing to do with South America’s real
revolution,” Globe and Mail, March 14, 2013. Available online at: http://www.
theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/doug-saunders-hugo-chavez-had-nothing-
to-do-with-south-americas-real-revolution/article9552917/. Accessed on June
14, 2013. Bizarrely, the article, which contrasts Chávez’s “socialism” with social
democracy in the region, in particular Brazil’s, lumps Argentina with Venezuela.
1072 N. Vanderklippe, “Chavez’s death opens door to Venezuela’s oil riches,” Globe and
Mail, March 6, 2013, p. B1.
1073 Toronto Star, “Star stories on Venezuela lacked balance, panel rules,” Toronto Star,
March 13, 2007. Available online at: http://www.thestar.com/news/2007/03/13/
star_stories_on_venezuela_lacked_balance_panel_rules.html. Accessed on June
14, 2013.
1074 O. Ross, “If you thought Chavez (sic) was bad,” Toronto Star, March 10, 2013, p. A3.
1075 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Congratulates Venezuelans, Calls
for Calm and Peaceful Resolution,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
April 17, 2013.
1076 M. Weisbrot, “Venezuela’s Post-Election Campaign: Pots and Pans and Uncle Sam
Weren’t Enough This Time,” Washington: Centre for Economic Policy Research, April
22, 2013; Centre for Economic Policy Research, “Venezuelan Audit Can’t Find Any
Different Result in Presidential Election, Statistical Analysis Shows,” Washington:
Centre for Economic Policy Research, April 26, 2013.
1077 See W.I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, U.S. Intervention, and
Hegemony, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
1078 Democracy promotion and the promotion of human rights are often used
interchangeably in foreign policy circles in Canada as well as media representations
of these activities.
1079 Many of these projects were funded through Foreign Affairs’s Glyn Berry Fund,
which had a page with a list of spending initiatives at the old fait website. More
recent projects can be found at Foreign Affairs’s “Proactive Disclosure” link. Canadian
spending on demcoracy promotion was also done through cida until the Harper
Conservatives decided to concentrate it—so as to be able to better strategically
coordinate it—within Foreign Affairs.
1080 Y. Engler, “Canada Attempts to Undermine Democracy in Venezuela,” Dissident
Voice, December 13, 2010. Available online at: http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/12/
canada-attempts-to-undermine-democracy-in-venezuela/. Accessed on December
14, 2010.
1081 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Global Peace and Security Fund, “Bringing
a Citizen Focus into the Functioning of Legislatures,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, 2007, Access to Information, file A-2010-01201.
1082 P. Kent, “Notes for an Address by the Honourable Peter Kent, Minister of State for
Foreign Affairs (Americas) Keynote Address to the Experts’ Dialogue on Canada’s
Engagement in the Americas,” Ottawa: Foreign Afairs and International Trade,
February 25, 2009.

1083 N. Burron, “Reconfiguring Canadian democracy promotion,” International Journal,
Spring, 2011, p. 392. Cameron and Hecht argue that Canadian democracy support
policy in the Americas in the 1990s was framed by an understanding that democracy
and the free market model of development are co-terminous. Burron argues that the
more explicitly instrumentalist turn in Canadian democracy promotion came about
in the early 2000s. We agree with that, and add that its importance—including money
spent and its elevation in discussion in embassies and Ottawa regarding strategic
intervention in select Latin American countries—grew through the 2000s, with the
Harper Conservatives picking up and extending where Liberal governments left off.
See M. Cameron and C. Hecht, “Canada’s Engagement With Democracies in the
Americas,” Canadian Foreign Policy, 14, 3, 2008, pp. 11–28.
1084 Latulippe is quoted in L. Berthiaume, “Leading the change at Rights and Democracy,”
Embassy, September 22, 2010, p. 4.
1085 Contributions to the Commission can be found in “Financial Resources” at www.
oas.org. Accessed on May 24, 2013. The Standing Senate Committee on Human
Rights produced a report in May 2003 which discusses the Canadian government’s
reasons for not ratifying the Convention, which revolve around its incompatibility
with Canadian and other international law. The Senate report quotes former Liberal
minister, Lloyd Axworthy, who described the Convention as “vague” and “outdated.”
The report argues, however, that Canada could sign on to the Convention while
easily addressing those concerns regarding compatibility. The Standing Committee
on Human Rights, Enhancing Canada’s Role in the oas: Canadian Adherence to the
American Convention on Human Rights, Ottawa, May 2003. Available online at:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/sen/committee/372/huma/rep/rep04may03-e.
htm. Accessed on May 24, 2013.
1086 See, for example, the relevant study of the now defunct Rights and Democracy.
Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, 3rd Session,
40th Parliament, April 15, 2010. This position is also echoed in the Committee’s 2012
report on human rights in Venezuela.
1087 M. Morin and L. Edwards, Mandate Letter to Perry Calderwood.
1090 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Minister of State Kent to Visit Venezuela
and Bolivia,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, January 19, 2010.
1091 P. Kent, “Special Meeting of the Permanent Council to Welcome the Honourable Peter
Kent, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs of Canada,” Washington: oas, November
10, 2010. Available online at: www.oas.org. Accessed on November 21, 2010.
1092 C. Prefontaine, “Report re. laws,” Caracas: Canadian Embassy, January 25, 2011, and
K. Duguid, “Report from Demarches,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, January 11, 2011, both from Access to Information, file A-2010-01863.
1093 Associated Press, “Venezuelan national assembly bars foreign funding for ngos,”
Guardian, December 22, 2010. Available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/
world/2010/dec/22/venezuela-chavez-ngo-foreign-funding. Accessed on January
5, 2011.
Notes 361
1094 Canadian Embassy in Caracas, “Country Strategy—Venezuela 2008–09.” The law

was also discussed by cida officials, in whose budget the cfli is covered, but the
documents on this are redacted entirely.
1095 Both quotes are from A. Fenton, “The Revolution Will Not Be Destabilized,”
Dominion, April 3, 2009. Available online at: http://www.dominionpaper.ca/
articles/2557. Accessed on May 1, 2009.
1097 Canada Fund for Local Initiatives project lists are from Access to Information-cida,
files A-2008-00156 and A-2010-00197. cfli is mentioned in cida’s project browser
but almost no information is given beyond the spending amount. Canadian aid to
Venezulea is found in the annual reports at www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/reports.
1098 Engler, “Canada Attempts to Undermine Democracy in Venezuela.”
1099 E. Golinger, “ned Report: International Agencies fund Venezuelan opposition
with $40–50 million annually,” Znet, June 22, 2010. Available online at: www.
zcommunications.org. Accessed on June 22, 2010. The report highlights the
potentially important role that Canada can play in Venezuela in place of the U.S.,
whose presence draws negative attention given its history of intervention in the region
and open hostility to Chávez. Canada’s “neutrality” serves democracy promotion
well; “due to its silent diplomacy, Canada has not yet been targeted by the Chávez
government.” S .Gratius, “Assessing Democracy Assistance: Venezuela,” (Fundación
para las Relaciones Internacionales y el diálogo Exterior [fride: Foundation for
International Relations and Foreign Dialogue, May 2010) p. 8. However, Canada’s
engagement clearly is not neutral, as we argue, nor has it been very silent under the
Harper government, as we discuss in this chapter.
1100 Canada, “Government Response to the Third Report of the Standing Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Development Entitled ‘The Situation of Human
Rights in Venezuela,’” Ottawa: Canada, October 18, 2012. Available online at: http://
www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=5763305&Language
=E&Mode=1&Parl=41&Ses=1. Accessed on October 26, 2012.
1101 El Comercio, “Correa: No aceptamos negociar nada,” El Comercio, October 1, 2010.
Available online at: http://www.elcomercio.com/politica/Correa-aceptamos-
negociar_0_345565468.html. Accessed on January 8, 2014.
1102 For one brief account of the day’s events see bbc, “Ecuador Declares State of
Emergency Amid ‘Coup Attempt,’” October 1, 2010. Available online at: http://
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11447519. Accessed on January 8, 2014.
1103 El Comercio, “La oea, la onu y los gobiernos amigos apoyaron al Presidente,”
El Comercio, October 1, 2010. Available online at: http://www.elcomercio.com/
politica/OEA-ONU-gobiernos-apoyaron-Presidente_0_345565495.html. Accessed
on January 8, 2014.
1104 Kent quoted in Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Canada Expresses Concern
Over Unrest in Ecuador,” (Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
September 30, 2010).
1105 Allan Culham quoted in oas, Report of the Secretary General to the Permanent
Council on His Visit to Ecuador, Organization of American States, October 6, 2010.
Available online at: www.oas.org. Accessed on October 12, 2010.
1106 A. Shisko, “Ecuador sitrep,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, October 3, 2010, Access to
1107 A. Shisko, “Réunion régionale sur l’Unité andine pour la gouvernance démocratique,”
Quito: Canadian Embassy, October 7, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-01363.
1108 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Disclosure of Grant and Contribution Awards
Over $25,000, “Corporacion Participacion Ciudadana.” Available online at: www.
international.gc.ca. Accessed on January 1, 2016.
1109 A. Shisko, “RE: For your review and approval,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, January
1110 Corporacion Participación Ciudadana, Project Concept Paper—“Strengthening
Ecuadorian Civil Society Through Empowering Citizen Participation,” Quito:
Corporacion Participación Ciudadana, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2011-
01180. The groups participating in the project’s workshops are not identified; the
embassy describes them as “grassroots” and representing “diverse interests.” M.
McGuire, “audg Program Report—Strengthening Civil Society by Empowering
Citizen Participation,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, May 17, 2011, Access to
1111 Author unknown, “Update on the Situation in Ecuador,” Embassy in Quito: specific
date uknown, 2008, Access to Information, file A-2008-00052.
1112 National Endowment for Democracy, “Interim Project Report,” Washington: National
Endowment for Democracy, July 15, 2009, Access to Information, file A-2010-01636.
1113 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Disclosure of Grant and Contribution Awards
Over $25,000, “Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy.” Available online
at: www.international.gc.ca. Accessed on January 1, 2016.
1114 Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, Global Peace and Security Fund
Project Proposal Sheet, Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, August 29,
Project Proposal Sheet, Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, December
Project Proposal Sheet, Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, August 29,
2008.
1117 Turnout percentages are from http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=67.
Accessed on February 18, 2013. The nimd proposal is quoted in Netherlands Institute
for Multiparty Democracy, Global Peace and Security Fund Project Proposal Sheet,
Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, specific date unknown, 2009, Access
1118 A. Shisko, “Pre-dpat consultation: concept paper by the Netherlands Institute for
Multiparty Democracy,” Quito: Canadian Embassy, September 20, 2010, Access to
1119 Revil, Utting, and Rivera, “Andean Brief,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International
Trade, date unknown, Access to Information, file A-2010-00547.
1120 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Disclosure of Grant and Contribution
Awards Over $25,000, “Asociación Civil Transparencia.” Available online at: www.
Notes 363
international.gc.ca. Accessed on August 17, 2011.

1121 Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “Opening of Andean Unit for Democratic
Governance,” Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, date unknown, Access
to Information, file A-2010-00548. A report on a workshop run through the Andean
Unit involving embassy officials from Peru, Venezuela, and Ecuador as well as civil
society representatives from the region was heavily redacted.
1122 B. Fernández, “The Islamo-Bolivarian threat,” Al Jazeera, August 17, 2011. Available online
at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/08/2011810104313405606.
html. Accessed on August 17, 2011; E. Goliner, The Chávez Code: Cracking U.S.
Intervention in Venezuela, London: Pluto Press, 2007.
1123 Author unknown, “Venezuela.”
1124 Ibid.
1125 Canadian Embassy in Bogotá, Country Strategy, 2006–07, Bogotá: Canadian
Embassy, 2006, Access to Information, file 2010-02394.
1126 Harper is quoted in M.A. O’Grady, “A Resolute Ally in the War on Terror,” Wall
Street Journal, February 28, 2009. Available online at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/
SB123578347494598289. Accessed on March 1, 2009.
1127 S. Brison, Hansard, 40th Parliament, 2nd Session, Number 080, September 14, 2009.
1128 Documents relating to Morin’s trip are from Access to Information-Privy Council
Office, file A-2012-00269.
1129 Office of the Chief Military Personnel, “Visit Report—rcmp Visit to
Colombia—10–12 November 2009,” Ottawa: Department of National Defence,
January 16, 2010, Access to Information, file A-2010-00734-DND.
1130 U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, “Canada on 3/17 Ministerial,” Ottawa: U.S. Embassy, March
14, 2008. Available online at: www.semana.com/wikileaks. Accessed on November
17, 2011.
1131 J.R. Webber, “Uribe’s Parting Shot: Colombia and Venezuela Rattle Their Sabres,”
The Bullet, August 5, 2010. Available online at: http://www.socialistproject.ca/
bullet/399.php. Accessed on March 8, 2015.
1132 Semana, “Canadá y Colombia firman un acuerdo de colaboración militar,” Semana,
November 17, 2012. Available online at: http://m.semana.com/nacion/articulo/
canada-colombia-firman-acuerdo-colaboracion-militar/268024-3. Accessed on
March 21, 2014.
1133 El Nuevo Herald, “Harper discute con Santos seguridad para empresas canadienses,”
El Nuevo Herald, August 10, 2011. Available online at: http://www.elnuevoherald.
com/2011/08/10/1001003/harper-discute-con-santos-seguridad.html. Accessed
on August 10, 2011.
1135 The Canadian government is quoted in M. Blanchfield, “Canada quietly loosens
limits on assault-weapon exports to Colombia,” Globe and Mail, January 2, 2013.
Available online at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-
quietly-loosens-limits-on-assault-weapon-exports-to-colombia/article6861525/.
Accessed on January 3, 2013; L. Berthiaume, “Conservative government looking
to bolster Canada’s arms trade with developing countries,” Calgary Herald, July 24,
2013. Available online at: www.calgaryherald.com. Accessed on August 14, 2013.
1136 Daily Markets, “General Dynamics Awarded $65 Million by the Colombian Ministry
of National Defence For Light Armoured Vehicles,” Daily Markets, January 10, 2013.
Available online at: www.dailymarkets.com. Accessed on January 10, 2013.
1137 Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, “Canada Enhances Security in
Colombia,” Bogotá: Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, August 1,
2013.
1138 Canadian special forces were in fact sent to Peru in 1996 in response to a Tupac
Amaru assault on the Japanese ambassador’s residence that led to a hostage taking
of several hundred people. The special forces were sent as part of a Canadian strategy
to negotiate safe passage to Cuba with the guerrillas. Special forces were planning
to assault the guerrillas during the passage. The assault never happened as the
negotiations broke down.
1139 Prime Minister’s Office, “Canada strengthens defence and security ties with Peru,”
Lima, Peru: Prime Minister’s Office, May 22, 2013.
1140 A. Foster, “Peru’s defence minister invited to Canada,” p. 16; TV Peru, “Perú y Canadá
fortalecen cooperación en Educación, Energía y Defensa,” TV Peru, December 3,
2012. Available online at: www.tvperu.gob.pe. Accessed on December 4, 2012.
1141 L. Berthiaume, “Conservative government looking to bolster Canada’s arms trade.”
1142 L. Henao, “Chile blocks Pascua-Lama mine, fines Barrick $16M for environmental
violations,” Winnipeg Free Press, May 24, 2013. Available online at: www.
winnipegfreepress.com. Accessed on May 24, 2013; Associated Press, “Chile suspends
Barrick Gold mine on indigenous fears of pollution,” Edmonton Journal, April 10, 2013.
Available online at: www.edmontonjournal.com. Accessed on April 10, 2013; Latin
American Press, “Pascua Lama mine suspended,” Latin American Press, November
16, 2012. Available online at: http://lapress.org/articles.asp?art=6737. Accessed on
November 26, 2012.
1143 Barrick is not the only mining company enmeshed in controversy in Chile. The
construction of Goldcorp’s C$3.9 billion El Morro mine was stopped in April 2012
when Chile’s top court suspended approval of an environmental permit following
accusations that it contained deficiencies and a local indigenous community was
not properly consulted before construction began. P. Jordan, “Goldcorp halts work
on Chilean mine” Globe and Mail, April 30, 2012. Available online at: http://www.
theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/
goldcorp-halts-work-at-chilean-mine/article4103975/. Accessed on April 30, 2012.
1144 K. Keenan, “Canadian Mining: Still Unaccountable,” nacla Report on the Americas,
May/June, 2010, p. 30; M. Valente, “Mining Industry Puts a Freeze on Mapping of
Argentina’s Glaciers,” Upside Down World, March 15, 2012. Available online at: http://
upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3511-mining-industry-puts-
a-freeze-on-mapping-of-argentinas-glaciers. Accessed on March 26, 2012.
1145 La Verdad Ahora, “La Barrick Gold posee un ‘pais virtual’ de 3.000 kilómetros de
largo en la Cordillera de los Andes,” Piensa Chile, March 18, 2012. Available online
at: http://piensachile.com/2012/03/la-barrick-gold-posee-un-qpais-virtualq-de-
3000-kilometros-de-largo-en-la-cordillera-de-los-andes/. Accessed on March 20,
2012.
1146 aim, “Protesta contra la Barrick Gold deja 30 detenidos,” aim, February 9, 2012.
Notes 365
Available online at: http://www.aimdigital.com.ar/2012/02/09/protesta-contra-

la-barrick-gold-deja-30-detenidos/. Accessed on February 14, 2012.
1147 R. Picolotti, Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development,
40th Parliament, 2nd Session, Ottawa: November 24, 2009. It is also worth noting that
in 2010 Argentina’s Secretary of Mining, Jorge Mayoral, faced allegations of having
financial ties to Barrick. Clarín, “Acusan al secretario de Minería de tener lazos con la
empresa Barrick,” Clarín, July 15, 2010. Available online at: http://www.clarin.com/
politica/Acusan-secretario-Mineria-empresa-Barrick_0_298770159.html. Accessed
on July 20, 2010.
1148 The quotation is from a cable created January 21, 2009 from the US embassy in
Buenos Aires, released by wikileaks March 14, 2011.
1149 C. Meyer, “Where’s the beef? Sizing up Canada-Mexico relations,” Embassy, May
26, 2010. Available online at: http://m.embassynews.ca/news/2010/05/26/
wheres-the-beef-sizing-up-canada-mexico-relations/38958. Accessed on May 27,
2010; Secretaría de Economía, Anuario Estadístico de La Minería Mexicana 2012,
Mexico: Secretaría de Economía, 2013; Forbes, “Mining on the Upswing in Mexico,”
Forbes, June 11, 2010. Available online at: http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/10/
mexico-mining-industry-business-oxford-analytica.html. Accessed on June 17, 2010;
Mexidata, “Canadian Businesses Continue to Invest in Mexico,” Mexidata, February
14, 2011. Available online at: www.mexidata.info. Accessed on February 17, 2011.
1150 Rights Action, “Mexican Government Sends Troops In Support of Canadian Mining
Company,” Rights Action, Electronic Bulletin, May 9, 2009. Accessed on May 9, 2009.
1151 D. Paley, “Militarized Mining in Mexico,” Dominion, December 12, 2011. Available
online at: http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4301. Accessed on December 15,
2011; Canadian Press, “Canadian firm fires 397 workers at Mexican mine,” Globe and
Mail, June 18, 2010, p. B8.
1152 M. DeFrancesco, “Protest Against Canadian Mine in Mexico,” Upside Down World,
July 27, 2010. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-
archives-79/2606-protest-against-canadian-mine-in-mexico. Accessed on July 28,
2010.
1153 P. Connors, “Re: Semarnat-Canada: Solicitud de audiencia,” Ottawa: Foreign
Affairs and International Trade, November 13, 2009, Access to Information, file
A-2010-01152.
1154 S. Montgomery, “Mexico shuts down Canadian mine,” Toronto Star, December 9,
2009, p. A19.
1155 G. McArthur, “Miner raided over bribery allegations,” Globe and Mail, August 29,
2011, p. A3.
1156 J. Moore and G. Colgrove, “Corruption, Murder and Canadian Mining in Mexico:
The Case of Blackfire Exploration and the Canadian Embassy,” Mining Watch, May
2013. Available online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/files/blackfire_embassy_
report_eng_0.pdf. Accessed on May 30, 2013.
1157 D. Paley, “Ottawa’s role in the permanent war against the people of Mexico,” Upside
Down World, July 4, 2012. Available online at: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/
news-briefs-archives-68/3729-canada-boosts-police-power-in-mexico. Accessed on
July 5, 2012.
1158 Project for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Mexico, “Mexican Army and Police
Use Force to Break Community’s Protest, Enter Excellon’s La Platosa Mine,” Mining
Watch, August 29, 2012. Available online at: http://www.miningwatch.ca/news/
mexican-army-and-police-use-force-break-communitys-protest-enter-excellons-la-
platosa-mine. Accessed on August 30, 2012.
1159 Public Safety Canada’s Mexican planning is discussed in a cable from the US embassy
in Ottawa, released via wikileaks. The cable was written April 15, 2009.
1160 Halifax Initiative, “edc backs another controversial mine,” Halifax Initiative, April
30, 2010. Available online at: http://www.halifaxinitiative.org/content/monthly-
issue-update-april-30-2010. Accessed on May 5, 2010.
1161 Listin Diario, “Más de 400 trabajadores de la empresa minera Barrick Gold se intoxican
en Cotuí,” Listin Diario, March 15, 2010. Available online at: www.listindiario.com.
Accessed on April 14, 2010; Dominican Today, “Toxins sickened Barrick Gold’s 326
Dominican miners, study says,” Dominican Today, March 24, 2010. Available online
at: http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/economy/2010/3/24/35196/Toxins-
sickened-Barrick-Golds-326-Dominican-miners-study-says. Accessed on April 14,
2010.
1162 Dominican Today, “Canada defends Barrick Gold’s operation in Dominican
Republic,” Dominican Today, February 11, 2010. Available online at: http://www.
dominicantoday.com/dr/economy/2010/2/11/34791/Canada-defends-Barrick-
Golds-operation-in-Dominican-Republic. Accessed on February 12, 2010.
1163 A. Vásquez, “Decenas de heridos en protesta contra Barrick Gold en Cotuí,” Listin
Diario, September 28, 2012. Available online at: www.listindiario.com. Accessed on
October 2, 2012.
1164 Northern Miner, “Customs hold-up has Barrick investors on edge,” Northern Miner,
March 15, 2013. Available online at: http://www.northernminer.com/news/
customs-hold-up-has-barrick-investors-on-edge/1002145720/. Accessed on March
15, 2013.
Index
2000 Ley para la Promoción de la Inversión Agencia de Promoción de Inversiones
y de la Participación Ciudadana (Law de Nicaragua (Agency for
for the Promotion of Investment and the Promotion of Investment in
Citizen Participation—Peru), 217 Nicaragua–ProNicaragua), 137
23 de Enero, 244 Agrarian Reform Law of 1953 (Guatemala),
87
Abarca, Mariano, 280–1 agriculture,
Ablonczy, Diane, 176, 204, 258, 282 agrarian reform, 40, 63, 85, 87, 104
Acacías, 168–9 agribusiness, 65, 108
Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, and capitalism, 85
Físicas y Naturales (Colombian dispossession,, 87, 154, 153
Academy of Natural, Physical and exports, 120, 128–9
Exact Sciences), 173–4 livelihood, 153
Acción Ecológica (Ecological Action), mining impact, 71, 104, 185–6, 194–5,
219–223 217
accountability, 3, 18, 27, 175, 234, 246–7, peasant, 40, 172
270 producer, 14
accumulation, see also capital, accumulation small, 138
by dispossession, 14–15, 27–8, 149–50, sector, 28, 198–9
285 strike, 157–8
primitive, 14, 90 workers, 88, 156
Achuar territory, 202 aid,
Acosta, Alberto, 213–14, 216–17, 220–1, bilateral, 78, 81, 140, 205–7, 240–1, 265
225–7 development, 24–7, 36, 52, 77–8, 81,
activists, 35, 37, 44, 56–7, 59–61, 66–7, 148–9, 179–81, 237, 247, 285
70–1, 74–6, 82–3, 94–6, 98–100, 109, military, 36–7, 87
112–14, 123–5, 134, 137–8, 140–1, AirScan, 162
152–3, 161–2, 167, 171–2, 174, alba, see Alianza Bolivariana para los
176, 178, 189, 194–5, 199, 211, 215, Pueblos de Nuestra América
219–20, 222, 231, 233, 254, 269, 285 Albo, Greg, ix, 30
adismi, see Association for the Integrated Alegría, Rafael, 61, 63
Development of San Miguel Alemán, Arnoldo, 135–6
aecon Construction, 234 Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de
Afghanistan, 20–2 Nuestra América (Bolivarian Alliance
afl-cio (American Federation of Labor), 35 for the Peoples of Our America–
Africa, 5, 25–6, 40, 57, 80, 107–8, 207, 237, alba), 46, 136, 211, 214–15, 246
243 Alianza País (Country Alliance, ap), 213–14,
Afro-Colombians, 150, 155, 157–8, 162–3, 232, 267
169, 175, 181, 272 Alianza Republicana Nacionalista
Afro-Ecuadorians, 213 (Nationalist Republican Party—
Afro-Indigenous, 61 arena, El Salvador), 119–20
Afro-Latin American, 215 Allen, Jon, 239–41
Afro-Venezuelans, 256 Allison, Dean, 103
Ágel, 114 Almendarez, Juan, 70
367
Alta Verapaz, 107 Honduran Peasants–anach), 35

Alta Vista, 75–6 Asociación Nacional de Minería Metálica
Álvarez Paz, Oswaldo, 253–4 (National Association of Metal
Amador, Javier, 138 Mining), 67, 79
Amazon, 173, 183–5, 188, 198, 202 Asp, Jerry, 95, 225
American Convention on Human Rights, Assange, Julian, 211
262–3 assassinations, 37–8, 44, 47–8, 59–60, 62,
Amezaga, Jaime, 71 82–3, 104–6, 109, 114–16, 123–7,
Amnesty International, 161, 176 150–1, 164, 169–70, 178–9, 221,
anaminh, see National Association of 247–8, 285–6
Metal Mining assets, 16–17, 129–30, 149, 164, 238
Ancash, 193–200 public, 14–15
Andean Regional Initiative, 26–7, 180–1, Association for the Integrated Development
206–7 of San Miguel (adismi), 99–100, 114
Andean Unit for Democratic Governance atrocities, 152, 161, 175, 181
(audg), 267–71 audg, see Andean Unit for Democratic
Anderson, Patrick, 227 Governanc
Antamina mine, 205 Auerlian Resources, 227
Anti-Corruption Party (pac), 82 Aura Minerals, 67–8, 71–2
Antioquia, 156, 162–3, 169–70 Aura Silver Resources, 121
ap, see Alianza País or Asamblea de los austerity, 12, 39, 64, 78, 129, 266
Pueblos Australia, 121, 124
Aragua, 254–5 autocracy, 248, 250–1
Araujo, María Consuelo, 170 auto-golpe, 32, 190
Araya, Edgardo, 133 Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (Self-
Árbenz, Jacobo, 86–7, 104 Defence Units of Colombia), 155
arbitrary detention, 28, 36, 188, 286 Automatic Firearms Country Control List,
arena, see Alianza Republicana 274
Nacionalista (El Salvador) Avilés, William, 152
Arequipa , 192 Awajún, 198–9
Arévalo, Juan José, 86–7 Aymara, 199
Argentina, 19, 27, 43, 87, 193, 195, 279
Arias, Oscar, 52, 55, 129, 130–5, 139 B2Gold, 131, 134, 136–9
Arias, Rodgrigo, 133–4 Bac, Pablo, 116
Aristide, Jean-Bertrand, 22 Bagua, 198–200
army, 60, 90, 114, 172, 292, 281 Bajo Aguán region, 40, 48, 58–9
Arsenault, Daniel, 67–8, 76–7 Baird, John, 81, 204, 258, 263
arsenic, 70–1, 98–9, 122, 186 Baltodano, Álvaro, 137
Article 296-A, 253–4 bananas, 34–5, 39–40, 42–3, 61, 128–9,
Arzú, Álvaro, 92 138–9, 156, 213, 216
Asamblea de los Pueblos (Assembly of banks,
Peoples, ap), 223 Banco Colpatria, 149
Ascendant Copper Corporation, see also Banco de Comercio,, 121
Copper Mesa Mining Corporation, Bancolombia, 165
211, 219–21 Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), 16,
Asia, 16, 40, 129, 250 19, 121–2, 131, 149, 184
-Pacific, 207 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce,
Asociación Nacional de Campesinos (cibc), 16, 165
Hondureños (National Association of capital investment, 181, 278–80
Index 369
collapse, 19 Bolivia, 25, 41, 43, 63, 136, 180–1, 193, 199,
commercial, 12 209–10, 240, 246, 261
nationalized, 128 Boudria, Don, 103
offshore accounts, 91 bourgeoisie, 4, 38, 149–50, 153, 187, 209
private, 129–30 Bourrouet, Andrei, 132
privatization, 129–31, 149–51 Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (bds), 25
profits, 107 Brantome, Carola, 138–9
public, 129–30 Brazil, 49–51, 54, 62–4, 87, 164–5, 168, 173,
regional, 12 200
Royal Bank of Canada (rbc), 16 Breaking the Silence (ngo), 115
Royal Bank of Scotland, 149 Breakwater Resources, 67–8, 77
Barco, Virgilio, 151 Brison, Scott, 177, 273
Barinas, 248 British Columbia, 95, 225
Barrick Gold, 17–18, 24, 26–7, 131, 156, British Petroleum, 149
196–8, 202, 206–7, 245, 278–82 Brookfield Asset Management, 149
Barrios, Cristóbal, 203 Bucaramanga, 170–1
barrios marginales, 44 Buenos Aires, 187, 235, 279
Barry-Shaw, Nik, 30 Bugailiskis, Alexandra, 101–2
Basque Homeland and Freedom, 253 bullion, 118
Baxter, Peter, 162 Burkina Faso, 26
Bay Street, 204 Burron, Neil, 262
bds, see Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Burt, Tye, 237
Bear Creek, 199 Bury, Jeffrey Todd, 191
Bebbington, Anthony, 23, 125–6, 185–6 Bush, George W., 32
Belaúnde, Fernando, 189
Bell, 121–2 ca4, see Central American Four
Bellavista, 131 Cabañas, 122–5
Beltrán, Oscar, 123 Cáceres, Bertha, 48
Bema Gold Corp., 162 cacm, see Central American Common
Bennet Jones, 57 Market
Berger, Oscar, 92–4, 109–10, 112 cafta, see Central America Free Trade
Bergeron, Brent, 103–4 Agreement
Berthiaume, Lee, 206 Caguán, 151
Beta Vargas, 131 Cajamarca, 198
Betancur, Bolisario, 151 Caldas, 162–3, 169
biodiversity, 9, 75, 138, 218, 225 Calderón, Felipe, 28, 32, 281
biofuel, 33, 47, 91 Calderón Fournier, Rafael Ángel, 129
Bishi Metals, 219 Calderón Sol, Armando, 121
Blackfire Exploration, 280–1 California (municipality–Colombia), 170
Black River First Nation, 224–5 California (U.S. state), 43,
Blackwood, Elizabeth, 25–7 Callejas, Rafael, 38–9
blockades, 48, 61, 71, 96, 106, 108–9, Calwood, Perry, 246, 263
112–13, 116, 123, 137–8, 141, 144, Cámara Minero de México (Chamber of
163, 166–8, 197–205, 239, 266, 280–1 Mining of Mexico–camimex), 280
bloodshed, 97–8, 116 Cambio Democrático (Democratic
Bogotá, 148–51, 167, 178–9, 272 Change—Panama), 140
bogotazo, 151 Cameron, Max, 257
Bolaños, Enrique, 135 camimex, see Cámara Minera de México,
Bolívar, Simón, 161, 248 Campbell, Francisco, 137
Campbell, Kim, 265 Cañariaco Norte, 203–4

Campo del Mar, 75–6 Candente Copper, 203–4
Campo Rubiales, 165–6 Cannon, Lawrence, 235
Canada–Colombia Free Trade Agreement capacity building, 235–6, 240, 267–8, 272
(ccofta), 24–5, 60, 148–9, 175, 178, Capiro Calentura National Park, 75
180–1, 272–3 capital
Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (cfli), access to, 165
180–1, 241, 264–5 accumulation, 4–5, 7, 9–10, 13, 20, 24,
Canada–Honduras Free Trade Agreement 29, 91, 201, 283
(chfta), 33–4, 58–60, 64, 78–82, 122, primitive, 14, 90
247–8, 255 agrarian, 39–40, 85
Canada Pension Plan, 71–2, 97 expansion, 2–4, 10, 12, 15–16, 27, 35, 60,
Canada-Peru Chamber of Commerce, 197 75, 90, 108, 283
Canada-Venezuela Foreign Investment extractive, 159–60, 184–5, 200, 282
Protection Agreement (fipa), 245 financial, 12–13, 15–16, 130
Canadian Auto Workers (caw), 162 flight, 91, 120
Canadian Banknote, 78 flow, 3, 11–18, 33, 41, 151, 184, 187, 212,
Canadian Centre for the Study of Resource 285
Conflict (ccsrc), 19 foreign, 58, 65, 79–80, 91, 103–4, 120–1,
Canadian Club of Investors, 223–4 129–30, 140–1, 183, 191, 194, 197,
Canadian Commercial Corporation (ccc), 200–1, 227, 244, 268–9, 272
78, 234, 274–5 penetration, 4, 19, 284
Canadian Council for the Americas, 156 private, 196, 241
Canada-Ecuador Chamber of Commerce in state, 13–14
Cuenca, 223–4 transnational, 4, 80, 86, 121, 200–1
Canadian Energy Research Institute (ceri), Capriles Radonski, Henrique, 250, 254–6
179–80 caracazo riots, 248
Canadian Environmental Agency, 235–6 Cárdenas, Mauricio, 166
Canadian Export Development Corporation, Caribbean, 6, 9, 15–17, 41–2, 49, 74, 149,
140, 148, 167, 281 246–7, 275
Canadian Foundation for the Americas Carroll, Rory, 248–51
(focal), 264 Cartagena Accord, 33
Canadian Initiative for Security in Central cartels (drug), 43, 109
America, 143–4 Carter, Jimmy, 36, 250
Canadian Institute of Mining, 68 Carter Centre, 250
Canadian International Development Castro, Xiomara, 82
Agency (cida), 19–27, 57, 59, 67–9, Castro Bocel, Raúl, 112
76–8, 81, 173, 179–81, 205–7, 227, Catamarca, 279
240–1, 264, 284 Catholic Church, 47, 88, 122, 138, 141,
Canadian International Development 194–5, 204–5
Platform, 17 caudillo, 248–9
Canadian International Institute for Caylloma mine, 202
Extractive Industries, 26 ccc, see Canadian Commercial Corporation
Canadian Lutheran World Relief, 205 ccofta, see Canada-Colombia Free Trade
Canadian Shield Asset Management, 74 Agreement
Canadian Teck Resources, 205 censat-Agua Viva, 171–2
Canahuati, Jesús, 79–80 Central America Free Trade Agreement
Canahuati, Mario, 68, 76 (cafta), 121–4, 130–1, 136
Canales, Reynaldo, 40 Central American Common Market (cacm),
Index 371
128–9 (Ecuador), 234–5

Central American Four (ca4), 79–80, 121–2 Citizen’s Revolution, 208–9, 214
Central Intelligence Agency (cia), 36–7, 87 civil society, 53, 253–4, 260, 263, 267–8
Centre for Legal, Environmental and Social civil war, 38, 43, 85–6, 93, 97–8, 104–5,
Action, 93–4, 115–18, 119–21, 135, 150, 161,
Centro Nicaragüense de Derechos Humanos 189–90, 201, 254
(Nicaraguan Centre for Human Clarke, Don, 225
Rights), 138 class,
ceres, see Conscorcio Ecuatoriano para la business, 64
Responsabilidad Social capitalist, 29, 120–1, 209
Cerezo, Vinicio, 90 “dangerous”, 28
ceri, see Canadian Energy Research dominant, 34, 209
Institute disorganization, 151
Cerro Blanco, 104 hybrid, 153
Cerro Colorado, 141 inequalities, 129, 188
cfli, see Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives injustice, 150–1
Chala, 199 landed, 86
Chamorro, Violeta, 135 -less society, 128–9
Chapter 11, 280 lower-, 252
Chavarría, Norma, 139 middle, 19, 125, 187, 212–13
Chávez, Hugo, 2, 46, 50–1, 100, 103, 125, popular, 33, 38, 42, 61, 64, 145, 208, 244,
133–4, 139 155–6, 164–5, 211, 248
243–59, 263–67, 271–3 power, 11–12
death, 244, 248–9, 257–8 ruling, 11–12, 33, 86, 88–9, 107, 130,
chavismo, 243–4, 246, 248, 258 142–3, 187–8
chfta, see Canada–Honduras Free Trade solidarity, 187
Agreement structure, 39, 90
Chiapas, 280–1 struggle, 13–14, 43, 86, 107, 111–12
Chicaiza, Gloria, 221–3 subordinate, 34
Chief Risk Officer, 200–1 warfare, 155–6
children, working, 120, 136
health, 70, 91, 105 clientelism, 244, 248–50, 259
street, 44–5, 47, 177 Clinton, Bill, 32
Chile, 19–20, 87, 184, 210–11, 278–9 Clinton, Hillary, 56
China, 5, 13, 27, 183–4, 218, 285 Cobre Panama, 141
Chinchilla, Laura, 129, 132 cocaine, 91
cholos, 189–90 codeh, see Comité de Derechos Humanos
Chontales, 137–8, de Honduras
Chretien, Jean, 19–20, 272–3 codemuh, see Colectivo de Mujeres de
Christian Base Communities, 88 Honduras
Chuji, Monica, 225–7 coercion, 6, 9, 14, 35–7, 109–11, 220, 284
Church of the Poor, 88 cofadeh, see Committee of Family
cia, see Central Intelligence Agency Members of the Disappeared of
cibc, see banks, Canadian Imperial Bank of Honduras
Commerce cold war, 21–2, 33, 36–8, 85, 105–5, 116–17,
Ciccariello-Maher, George, 243 128–9, 155, 182, 188, 207, 249, 255
cida, see Canadian International Colectivo de Mujeres de Honduras
Development Agency (Women’s Collective of Honduras—
Citizen Participation Organization codemuh), 72–3
Coles, Dave, 166–7 Nationalities of Ecuador

Colgrove, Gillian, 280–1 concessions, 64, 66, 69–71, 93–4, 100,
Colom, Álvaro, 92–4, 102, 109–10 104–5, 122–3, 135–6, 138–9, 141,
Colombian Consultancy on Human Rights 149, 157–8, 164, 176–7, 184, 186,
and Displacement, 160 190–7, 199, 217–21, 225–6, 228,
colony, 186–7 231–2, 234, 238–9
colonialism, 5–6, 10, 182–3, 186–7, 194, Condebamba Valley, 201–2
204, 207, 208 conditionalities, 12–13, 39, 190
Comando Unitario de Lucha de Condor Mountains, 217–18, 221
Lambayeque (Unified Command of Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities
the Lambayeque Struggle), 203 of Ecuador (conaie), 208, 214–15,
Comité Cívico Prodefensa de 230–1, 235
Marmato (Civic Committee in Confederación Nacional de Comunidades
Defence of Marmato), 169 del Perú Afectadas por la Minería
Comité Cívico Sipakapense (Sipakapense (National Confederation of Peruvian
Civic Committee), 113 Communities Affected by Mining),
Comité de Derechos Humanos de Honduras 192
(Human Rights Committee of Conference of Oil and Gas of Latin America,
Honduras—codeh), 44 167–8
Comité de Unidad Campesina (Committee confiscation, 111, 153
of Peasant Unity—cuc), 88 Congo, 237
Committee of Experts (ilo), 100, 117 Congress of Peoples (Colombia), 157
Committee of Family Members of the conquest, 5–6, 149, 186–7
Disappeared of Honduras (cofadeh), Conquistador Mines Ltd., 161
47–8 Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares
Committee to Protect Journalists (cpc), 250 y Indígenas de Honduras (Civic
Committee for the Defence of Water, 171 Council of Popular and Indigenous
commodities, Organizations of Honduras—
boom, 3, 41, 91–2, 165, 198, 218, 282, copinh), 74–5, 80
285 Consejo de los Pueblos de Occidente
commodification, 14 (Council of the Peoples of the West),
extractive, 27–8 112
prices, 8–9, 41, 94, 137, 175, 184, 191, Conservative Party of Canada, 20–1, 132–3,
216 176–7, 204, 256, 265–6
primary, 27–8 Conscorcio Ecuatoriano para la
Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Responsabilidad Social (Ecuadorian
Union of Canada (cep), 166 Consortium for Social Responsibility,
communists, 35, 36, 86–7, 187 ceres), 224
anti-, 35, 37, 87, 109, 128 constitution,
Manifesto, 4 Colombia, 154, 157
party, 52, 151, 204 Constitutional Court, 163
competition, 4–5, 28, 40 Costa Rica,
Comunidad Campesina San Juan De Constitutional Court, 131
Kañaris, 203, Ecuador, 208–9, 212–14, 224, 226–7,
conacami, see Confederación Nacional de 231–2, 239, 266, 268–70
Comunidades del Perú Afectadas por Guatemala, 94, 104, 109–11
la Minería Constitutional Court, 94, 116–17,
Conaghan, Catherine, 209 Honduras, 47, 49, 55, 57, 64, 73
conaie, see Confederation of Indigenous
Index 373
Nicaragua, 139–40 199–200, 209–19, 223, 225–6, 233,

Peru, 191 255, 282–4
Constituent Assembly, transnational, 8, 80, 86, 108, 120–1, 160,
Ecuador, 208–9, 212–14, 223–5, 269–70 165
Honduras, 47, 51, 61–4 Correa, Rafael, 2, 208–18, 223–42, 246,
consultations, 68–9, 94, 98–100, 111–12, 266–70
116–17, 163, 168, 173–4, 226 Corredor Tecnológico de Guatemala
Contras, 36–7, 135–6 (Guatemalan Technological Corridor),
Convention 169 (ilo), 99–100, 116–17 107
Convivirs, see Rural Vigilance Cooperatives Corriente Resources, see also
Cook, Kenneth, 115 EcuaCorrientes, S.A., 218–19, 221
cooperative, 40, 157 corruption, 22, 28, 39, 82, 133–5, 142, 145,
Coordinadora Campesina Popular (Popular 185, 212–13, 220–1, 249, 280–1, 285
Peasant Coordinator), 222–3 Costa Rica, 119, 128–34, 139, 141–2, 145,
Coordinadora Nacional por la Defensa 245
de la Vida y la Soberanía (National Cotacachi, 219
Coordinator for the Defence of Life Cotuí, 281
and Sovereignty), 222–3 counterinsurgency, 33, 36–8, 85, 87–8, 90–1,
copei, see Independent Political Electoral 135, 155, 188, 190
Organization Committee counterrevolutionary, 36, 135–6
copinh, see Consejo Cívico de counterterrorism, 22, 271–2
Organizaciones Populares y Indígenas Country of Focus, 25, 81, 205–6, 241
de Honduras coup d’état, 2, 21–2, 29, 32–3, 45, 47–68,
copper, 9, 17, 140–1, 150, 184, 193, 203–4, 73–84, 85, 87, 103–4, 121–2, 133–4,
216–17, 219–21 144–5, 176–7, 188, 209, 234–5,
Copper Mesa Mining Corporation, see also 247–8, 250–1, 253, 257–8, 263–7,
Ascendant Copper, 221 271–2, 285–6
Cosigo Resources, 173–5 self-, 190
Cordillera de los Andes, 279 crime syndicates, 120
core-periphery relationship, 7, 12, 27–30, 41, criminalization, 112–14, 134, 200, 222,
283, 285 285–6
Corona Goldfields, 180 crisis,
corpei, see Corporación de promoción de constitutional, 55
exportaciones del Ecuador debt, 12, 129
Corporacion Participación Ciudadana of democracy, 51
(Citizen Participation Corporation), diplomatic, 273
267 ecological, 28
Corporación de promoción de economic, 7, 11–12, 28, 36, 41, 183, 187
exportaciones del Ecuador (corpei), financial, 21–2
241 food, 28
Corporate Social Responsibility (csr), global, 16, 28, 41, 46, 83, 91–2, 245,
17–18, 26–7, 68, 71, 123–4, 172–3, 250–1
206–7, 212, 218, 224, 229, 236, 240–1, humanitarian, 179
285 legitimacy, 45, 188
corporations, political, 56, 76, 133, 250–1
multinational, 2–3, 8–10, 13–14, 18–20, Cristiani, Alfredo, 120–1
27–8, 34, 44, 46, 83, 91, 96, 108, 110, Cristiani, Edgar, 103
118, 121, 143–4, 150, 153, 156–63, de la Cruz, Carlos, 141
170, 175, 180, 183, 185–6, 191, 196, de la Cruz, Father Juan, 222–3
Cruz-Feliciano, Héctor, 125 promotion, 20–1, 55, 58, 87, 139–40,

Crystallex International, 245 200, 212, 234–5, 248–9,
csr, see Corporate Social Responsibility return to, 47, 49, 51–3, 62,
csr Centre for Excellence, 68 and security, 21, 142, 260–75, 284,
Cuba, 35, 46, 136, 163, 246–8, 258, 261, 263 socialized, 85,
Cuban Revolution, 188 Democratic Action (Acción Democrática,
cuc, see Comité de Unidad Campesina ad), 248
Cuéllar Cruz, Rigoberto, 68, demonstrations, 52, 64, 108, 130, 133–4,
Cuervo Sotelo, Yohana, 159–60 141, 166, 203, 218–19, 230–1, 280
Cuffe, Sandra, 77 Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and
Culham, Alan, 56, 102–3, 266–7 Development (dfatd), 19, 21, 23,
culture, 39, 75, 80, 89–90, 173–4, 190, 232, 49–50, 53, 57, 68, 73, 76–82, 103,
268 114–15, 139, 143, 162, 170, 181, 197,
cyanide, 66, 70–1, 98–9, 122, 171, 281 204, 224, 228, 230, 234–5, 246–7, 255,
258, 261–8, 270, 272, 279, 284
Day, Stockwell, 2–3, 177, 198–9, 234 dependency, 7, 27–8, 30, 182–207, 226–7,
death 244, 282
caravans, 189 deportation, 43, 90–1, 188
from drugs, 28 deregulation, 22–3, 129
environmental, 98–9 desciudadanización, 154
squads, 22–3, 38, 44, 50, 85, 88, 97–8, Dessau-Soprin, 97, 184
104, 120 development
threats, 28, 44–5, 71, 75–6, 104, 106, aid, 24–6, 78, 148–9, 179–81, 240–1,
111–12, 123, 153, 166–8, 178, 195, 285
216, 220, 280 capitalist, 5, 10
violent, 43–4, 47, 116, 123, 138–9, 152, cooperation, 82
157, 266 ecological impact, 9, 11, 69, 104, 127,
debt, 229
crisis, 12, 129 economic, 11–12, 177, 180, 225, 231,
relief, 41 284
decoin, see Defensa y Conservación export-led, 129, 282
Ecológica de Intag and fdi, 11
Decree 0934 (Colombia), 163 human, 74
Decree 1085 (Peru), 200 and imperialism, 29–30, 248–9
Defensa y Conservacion Ecologica de Intag model, 63–5, 151–2, 220
(decoin), 219–20 opposition to, 75, 207
deficit, 12–13, 46 projects, 93–4, 97, 108, 117, 218, 232,
deforestation, 44–5, 70 285
democracy, resource, 9, 21, 26, 29, 95–7, 108–9, 144,
constitutional, 53–4, 76, 149, 157, 162–3, 169, 172, 176, 183,
electoral, 34–6, 156, 254 185, 190, 198–202, 206, 211–12, 215,
liberal, 86–7, 128, 212, 249, 254–5, 220, 225, 231, 235, 238, 245, 270–1,
limited, 23, 274, 283
local, 163, social, 156, 196–7
movement, 50, 130, strategy, 93, 107, 212, 213–14, 215, 234
neoliberal, 20–1, 285–6 sustainable, 99, 128, 180, 200
opposition to, 51, 54, 61, 65, 81, 139, Third World, 7–8
143, 145, 212, tourist, 74–6, 91, 144
participatory, 63, 151, 257, under-, 7, 177
Index 375
uneven, 6–8, 11, 282–3 Colombia, 151–2, 155, 163, 172, 176
Development and Peace (ngo), 25 Costa Rica, 128–9
dfatd, see Department of Foreign Affairs, Ecuador, 209, 214, 226, 228, 241–2
Trade and Development El Salvador, 136
Díaz Morales, Miguel, 106 formal, 43, 90–1
Dickens, Peter, 13 global, 5, 13, 182
dictatorship, 16, 35–6, 50–1, 54–7, 64, 74, Honduran, 41–3, 55, 83
77, 81, 84, 86–7, 104, 109–10, 244, informal, 90–2, 217
256, 261, 265, 268 neoliberal, 34, 39
diplomacy, 21, 33, 76–8, 204–7, 212, 233, Nicaragua, 135
272 Peru, 183–7, 193–4
Directorate of Military Training and urban, 43
Cooperation (Canada), 281 U.S., 83
Directorate of Protected Areas (Panama), Venezuela, 249–51, 257–9
141–2 Economic Commission for Latin America
disappearances, 35–6, 85, 152–3, 177–8, (eclac), 8–9, 33
285–6 Economist Intelligence Unit (eiu), 92
discrimination, 75 Eco Oro, 170–3
displacement, 10–11, 19, 89–91, 107, 126–7, Ecopetrol, 149, 168–9
150–1, 153–6, 160–1, 164–6, 169, ecsa, see EcuaCorrientes S.A.
171–2, 175–81, 185, 193–4, 282, 285 EcuaCorrientes S.A. (ecsa), see also
dispossession, 10–11, 14–15, 17, 27–9, Corriente Resources, 211, 218–19,
35, 39, 43, 76, 95, 104–5, 108, 112, 221, 230, 238
119–145, 149–55, 171–2, 175, 181–3, Ecuador, 2, 20, 29, 136, 148, 193, 197–8,
186, 188, 243, 249, 251, 285 208–242, 246, 161, 266–71, 273, 275
dissidents, 22, 45, 58, 135, 142, 144, 187, Ecuadorian-Canadian Chamber of
247–8, 270 Commerce, 239–40
diversification, 34 Ecuador Mining Council, 234
dnd, see National Defence Canada Ecuador Runakunapak Rikcharimuy
Dobles, Roberto, 133 (Confederation of Peoples of Kichwa
Dominican Republic, 19, 46, 62, 87, 122, Nationality , ecuarunari), 216
281–2 ecuarunari, see Ecuador Runakunapak
Dominican Republic–Central American Rikcharimuyuy
Free Trade Agreement, 46, 122 edc, see Export Development Canada
Dorato Resources, 199 education, 46, 60, 83–4, 91, 128–9, 135,
dos demonios, 88, 148–9, 151, 153–4, 214, 243, 251, 268
Dulles, Allen, 87 egp, see Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres
Dulles, John Foster, 87 Eisenhower, Dwight,
Dunkerley, James, 38 eiu, see Economist Intelligence Unit
Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres (Guerrilla
earnings, 17–18, 40, 93, 102, 180, 198, 237, Army of the Poor—egp), 88
279–80 Ejército de Liberación Nacional, (National
eclac, see Economic Commission for Latin Liberation Army—eln), 152, 155–7,
America 274
École Polytechnique de Montreal, 26 El Campo, 169–70
ecology, 9–10, 159, 170–2, 282–6 El Cafetal, 137–8
economy, 20 El Carrizal, 105
agro-export, 185 elders, 95, 225
Canadian, 16–17 El Dorado, 122–3, 239
elections, 32, 36–9, 47, 51, 53–5, 61, eta, see Euskadi Ta Askatasuna
82–3, 86, 107–10, 113, 120–1, 125, Europe, 5, 11–13, 16, 82, 92, 152, 243
135, 139–40, 156, 158, 200, 203–5, European Union (E.U.), 82–3, 152
213–16, 248–40, 254–5, 265, 270 Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (eta), 253–4
electricity, 46, 97, 110, 130, 192 eviction, 109–10, 115, 144, 218–19
hydro-, 33, 47–8, 91–2, 107–8, 136, 141, Excellon Resources, 281
214, 218–19, 240 exmibal, 104–5, 116
El Escobal, 105, 110 Export Development Canada (edc), 140,
Eliécer Giatán, Jorge, 150–1 148, 167, 281
elites, 18, 38, 49, 102, 125, 130, 144, 170, exports,
188–9 agricultural, 119–21, 129
El Limón, 137 demand, 41
eln, see Éjercito de Liberación Nacional manufactured, 40
El Pangui, 218–19 mineral & oil, 159, 184, 210, 282
El Paraíso, 243 non-traditional, 39
El Salvador, 36–8, 79, 82, 104, 119–129, 136, processing zones, 2, 19, 40, 91
142–5, 247, 286 expropriation, 14, 35, 87, 170, 186, 191
El Tambor, 105 extermination, 152, 186–7
emancipation, 187 extortion, 124
employment, 153, Exxon, 164
creation, 8–9, 137, 175, 194
low levels of, 10–11, 184 Facussé Barjum, Miguel, 39–40
non-farm, 39 fait, see Foreign Affairs and International
un-, 45, 84, 91–2 Trade
under-, 91–2, 196 Falklands War, 37
Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica Fantino, Julian, 24–6
(National Electric Energy Company of Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
Honduras), 46 (fmln), 119–27
Endara, Guillermo, 140 farc, see Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias
engagement, 2–3, 18–22, 33, 56, 58–9, 69, de Colombia
76–8, 96–7, 143, 210, 228, 241, 246, farms,
252, 258, 260, 271, 281 capital-intensive, 107
Engels, Freidrich, 4 credit, 46
Entremares, 70 contamination, 99, 122, 207
environment farmers, 27, 248
-alists, 61, 69, 99, 131–2, 163, 170–1, indigenous, 114
229, 281 land, 87, 154
costs, 99, 185, 192 small-holder, 39–40, 70, 112, 159, 162–3,
impact, 66, 93–4, 108, 113, 122, 124–6, 194, 196
172, 185, 194, 197, 202, 232 sustainability, 98, 278
regulation, 98–9, 179, 191 yoeman, 128
studies, 66, 93–4, 113, 127, 184–5, 191, Federación Nacional de Campesinos
196, 202, 206, 232, 245 Hondureños (Federation of Honduran
Environmental Management Unit Peasants—fenach), 35
(Guatemala), 99 Feminists in Resistance, 63
esai Energy, 165 fenach, see Federación Nacional de
escualidos, 251 Campesinos Hondureños
Espinoza, Pablo, 138 Fenix, 104–5, 116
Estrategias y Minas, 170 Fenton, Anthony, 264
Index 377
Fernández, Cristina, 279 Frei, Eduardo, 279

Figueres Olsen, José, 129 Frente Amplio (Broad Front), 107–8
Financial Pacific, 142 Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación
fipa, see Foreign Investment Promotion and Nacional (Farabundo Martí National
Protection Agreement Liberation Front —fmln), 119–20,
First Latin American Communist 123–7
Conference, 187 Frente Nacional (National Front,
First Nations, 95, 224–5, 236 Colombia), 150–1
Flores Facussé, Carlos Roberto, 39 Frente Nacional de la Resistencia Popular
Flores Pérez, Francisco, 121 (National Front of Popular Resistance,
Fløysand, Arnt, 195–6 Honduras—fnrp), 48, 61–2
fmln, see Frente Farabundo Martí para la Frente Norte del Área Metropolitana
Liberación Nacional (Northern Front of the Metropolitan
fnrp, see Frente Nacional de la Resistencia Area), 105
Popular Frente de Resistencia Sur a la Minería a Gran
focal, see Canadian Foundation for the Escala (Resistance Front of the South
Americas against Large-Scale Mining), 223
Fondo Hondureño de Inversión Social Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional
(Honduran Social Investment Fund), (Sandinista National Liberation
45 Front), 36, 38, 89, 135
food, 148, Frente Unido del Estudiantado
basket, 92, 153 Guatemalteco Organizado (United
crisis, 28 Front of Guatemalan Students), 89
security, 70, 172 fride Institute, 265
subsidies, 12–13 Friends of the Earth, 161
Foreign Affairs (Canada), see Department frg, see Guatemalan Republican Front
of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Fruta del Norte, 237
Development fsln, see Frente Sandinista de Liberación
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Nacional
(fait), 49, 53, 56–7, 60, 67–8, 72, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de
77–9, 96–7, 101–2, 128, 131–3, 143, Colombia (Revolutionary Armed
177, 210–12, 224, 227–30, 234–6, Forces of Colombia—farc), 151–2,
240–1, 246–7, 252, 254–5, 263–5, 155–7, 165, 172–3, 253, 273
268, 270–3, 285 Fujimori, Alberto, 32, 183, 190–3, 200
foreign direct investment (fdi), 7–16, 33, 40, post-, 192
69, 121, 131, 149, 183, 241, 280, 285 Fundacion Justicia de Pas Monagas, 264–5
Foreign Investment Promotion and Funes, Mauricio, 125–6
Protection Agreement (fipa), 228, Fúnez Benítez, Julio, 56
239–41, 245
forests, 9, 33, 44–5, 65, 70–1, 115, 138, 198, Galante, John, 165
217–18, 286 Gammon Gold, 280
Forest Law (Honduras), 45–6 gangs, 39, 42–7, 91, 109, 115, 120, 123, 143
Fortier, Michael, 229–30 García, Alan, 189–90, 192, 196–201, 205,
Fortuna Silver, 202, 280 270–1
ftas, see trade, agreements García, María Constanza, 174
Franja Transversal del Norte, 107 García, Tomas, 48,
Frank, Dana, 82 García Baca, Godofredo, 195
Fraser Institute, 193 Garífuna, 74–6
free trade, see trade, free Gaviria, César, 151–2
gdp, see Gross Domestic Product Guayaquil, 239–41, 266

General Dynamics Land Systems Canada, Guergis, Helen, 114, 197
274 guerrillas, 35–8, 85, 88–9, 104, 119–20,
General Mining Law (Peru), 191 150–65, 177, 188–91, 202, 274
genocide, 85–118, 254 Guerrilla Army of the Poor (egp), 88
Ghana, 26 Guiamoreto Lagoon Wildlife Reserve, 75
Ghent University, 98–9, Guillén, Celso Alberto, 75
Gildan Activewear, 16, 19, 72–4, 77, 80, 255 Gutiérrez, Javier, 169
Gill, Lesley, 37 Gutiérrez, Lucio, 208, 212
Gilly, Adolfo, 14–15 Guyana, 41
Gindin, Sam, 30 Guzman, Abimael, 190
gini coefficient, 91–2 Guzman Duque, Federico, 176
Glamis Gold, 98, 112, 117
Global Affairs (Canada), 19, 284 Haarstad, Håvard, 195–6
Global Development and Environment Haiti, 19, 22, 41, 246–7
Institute, 99 Hanna Mining, 104
GoC, see Government of Canada Harper, Stephen, 19–26, 48–50, 56, 58–60,
Godínez, Mario, 107–10 67, 73–5, 78, 80–1, 133, 139–40,
Goldcorp, 17–18, 24, 65–6, 70–1, 93, 142–9, 155–6, 175–8, 198–9, 206,
96–105, 111–15, 118, 279–81 229, 234, 240, 249, 252–7, 264, 270,
Golden Reign Resources Ltd., 139 272–5, 278
Gold Reserve Inc., 245 hdi, see United Nations Human
Goldring, Peter, 73 Development Index
Golinger, Eva, 271, health, 70–3, 83–4, 98–9, 105, 116, 126–9,
Gordon, Todd, 30 135, 151–4, 165–6, 202, 220, 230,
Graham, John, 264 246–9, 251
Gran Colombia, 169–70, 172 Health Canada, 19, 21, 230, 284
Grandin, Greg, 38, 43, 87, 89–90 heavy metals, 71
Gran Tierra, 149, 178 hegemony, 188, 209
grassroots, 37–8, 76, 88, 112, 116–17, 138, Hernández, Juan Orlando, 33, 67–8, 82–3,
161–75, 181, 189, 201, 203, 222–3, 115
239, 264 Higginbottom, Andrew, 7
Gratton, Pierre, 26 Hill, David, 198
Great Depression, The, 28, 34, 83 Hill and Knowlton, 103
Greenstone, 71–2 Himley, Matthew, 196–7
Grenada, 87 Hondutel, 46, 56
Greystar, 170–3, Honduran Social Investment Fund, 45
Groupe ebi, 131 Hristov, Jasmin, 152–4, 179
Gross Domestic Product (gdp), 41, 46, Hudbay Minerals, 104–5, 115–16, 202
83–4, 91, 153, 160, 183–5, 251, 272 Huehuetengango, 107, 116–17
guardias blancas, 108–9 Humala, Ollanta, 200–5
Guatemala, 21–3, 29, 36, 38, 41, 57, 79, human rights, 2, 19–25, 27, 33, 37–9, 44,
84–8, 98–100, 103–5, 109–129, 47–8, 55–61, 65, 69, 73, 81, 88, 94, 98,
142–5, 202, 225, 230, 235, 247, 254, 100, 124, 127, 138, 144–5, 152–62,
272, 286 167, 171–2, 175–81, 195–7, 200, 212,
Guatemala City, 89–90, 97, 101, 108 229, 249, 254–5, 261–72, 275, 281–2
Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity, Human Rights Committee of Honduras, 44
89 Human Rights Watch, 154
Guatemalan Republican Front (frg), 109 Hurricane Mitch, 43, 66, 121
Index 379
hydrocarbons, 77, 96, 156–7, 167–8, 183–5 organizations, 27, 88, 112, 141, 215–16,
hydroelectricity, see electricity, hydro- 223, 236
Hyer, Bruce, 103 peasants, 28, 87, 203
Hylton, Forrest, 153–4, 156, 161–2 peoples, 10, 14–15, 27, 60, 230, 236, 240,
243, 272, 284
iachr, see Inter-American Commission for rights, 98, 116–17, 157, 169, 176, 178,
Human Rights 199–200, 204, 212, 222, 239, 284
iadb, see Inter-American Development territories, 80, 92, 140–1, 168, 179, 206,
Bank 217–18
iamgold, 199, 211–12, 227, 234, 238 Indigenous Peoples’ Partnership Program, 27
Ibarra (city), 220 indios, 189
Ibarra, Ángel, 124, 127 industrialization, 27–8, 187
Ich Chub, Adolfo, 116 inequality, 11, 33, 83–4, 92, 120, 143, 145,
icsid, see International Centre for 150, 154, 188, 262
Settlement of Investment Disputes Infinito Gold, 52, 131–5, 245
ifis, see International Financial Institutions Inmet Mining, 140–1
illiterate, see also literacy, 42, 91–2 insecurity, 33, 42–5, 181
ilo, see International Labour Organization instability, 3, 50, 91, 104, 107, 120, 143, 150,
Imbabura, 220–1 254–6, 265, 275
imf, see International Monetary Fund Instituto Técnico de las Fuerzas Armadas
imperialism, 3–15, 20–3, 28–30, 33, 35, 45, (Armed Forces Technical Institute–
51, 54, 62, 64, 84, 118–19, 129, 136, Peru), 275
145, 148, 150, 155, 165, 169, 181, Insulza, José Miguel, 266
186–7, 194, 200–1, 207–12, 215, 226, insurgency, 12, 33, 36–8, 85, 87–8, 90–1,
233, 241–9, 255–7, 260, 267, 271–2, 120, 135, 150, 152, 155, 159, 165, 188,
283–6 190
impunity, 28, 48, 59, 65, 112, 181 Intag Valley, 217–21
inco, 104 Inter-American Commission on Human
independence, 54, 61, 102, 178, 234 Rights (iachr), 100–3
Independent Political Electoral Organization Inter-American Development Bank (iadb),
Committee (Comité Organización 39, 66, 237
Politica Electoral Independiente, Inter-American Regional Organization of
copei), 248–9 Labor, 35–6
Indians, see indigenous peoples Interfin, 131
Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 97 International Centre for Settlement of
indigenous, Investment Disputes (icsid) 124, 239,
activism, 48, 99–100, 108–9, 140, 176, 245
194, 198–9, 202–3, 210–11, 219, 222, International Financial Institutions (ifis),
270–1 6–7, 10–11, 24, 129
Afro-, 61 International Labour Organization (ilo), 94,
communities, 10, 27, 61, 75, 86, 88–90, 100, 116–17
94–8, 107–8, 112, 115–16, 144, 150, International Monetary Fund (imf), 6–7,
155, 157–8, 162, 167, 173–6, 181, 183, 12–13, 39, 41, 46, 66, 68, 129
185, 190–1, 199, 201, 207, 214, 216, International Trade (Canada), 19, 23, 101,
218, 224–5, 229, 235, 269–70, 282, 177, 197, 224, 228
285 intervention, 3–4, 20, 22, 24, 27, 29, 49, 76,
movements, 48, 92, 118, 163, 188–9, 87, 96, 110, 119, 144–5, 151, 182, 200,
201, 208, 212–15, 233, 238 205–6, 209, 211–12, 227, 234, 238,
murders, 97, 104, 109–10, 186–7, 198 245, 251–2, 258, 260, 268, 278–9,
282–3 commodification, 14–15

Intrepid Minerals, 121 conditions, 217
inv Metals, 238 exploitation, 11
Iraq, 22 feminized, 91, 282
Ismi, Asad, 149 flexible, 158
Israel, 25, 37 force, 92, 178
Ixcán, 109–10 international division of, 27, 285
Izabal, 107 market, 14, 154
Izquierda Democrática (Democratic Left), migrant, 11
213 movement, 61, 194
productivity, 5
Jalapa, 108, 110 rights, 161, 169–70, 178–9, 214
Jamaica, 22, 272, 275 struggle, 136, 201
James, Ian, 250–1 wage, 35, 65, 78, 90
Janus, 175–9 ladinos, 85, 87–8
Japan, 13, 219 Laguna Sur mine, 206–7
Japanese International Cooperation Lake Güija, 104,
Agency, 219 La Libertad, 137
Jarvis, Adam, 71 Lambayeque, 203
Jimbotono, 218–19 Lambert, James, 94–6, 101–2, 230, 235, 273
Jiménez, Andrés, 165 La Mesa, see Mesa Nacional frente a la
jobs, see employment Minería Metálica de El Salvador
Jorgenson, Randy, 74–6 Landa, Pedro, 59, 66–7
Junín, 219–20 land,
justice, 11, 56, 59, 61, 63, 143, 150, 155, 172, grab,
176, 188, 212, 221, 243, 283, 286 -less, 35, 39–40, 87, 158
Justice Education Society of British -owners, 107, 153–4, 191, 280
Columbia, 59 “The Land Problem”, 186–7
Jutiapa, 104, 108 reform, 40, 86–8, 104, 153, 191,
tenure, 90, 126, 170, 256
kaibilies, 109 La Platosa mine, 281
Kairos, 25 LaPointe, Christian, 224, 227–8, 232–3,
Kent, Peter, 49–57, 67, 76–7, 81, 98, 101, 236–7
132, 139, 132–3, 234–5, 239, 252–4, Larios, Dina, 104
262–3, 266 Las Brisas, 245
Kergin, Michael, 57 Las Cristinas, 245
Kerssen, Tanya, 40, Las Crucitas mine, 131–5, 245
Keynesianism, 11–12 Las Nubes, 104, 115–16
Kichwa, 213 Lasso, Guillermo, 216
kidnapping, 44, 85, 111, 116, 123, 173 latifundia, 90
Kiely, Ray, 8 Latin American Centre for Political Studies,
Kinross, 221, 235–9 234–5
Klassen, Jerome, 30 Latulippe, Gérard, 262, 265
Kvisle, Hal, 168–9 La Unión, 71
La Vega, 243–4
labour, Law 134 (Colombia), 163
activism, 35, 37, 161, 188 Law Prohibiting Hard Rock Mining (El
child, 178 Salvador), 126
code, 73, 86, 191 Law on Social Responsibility in Radio and
Index 381
Television (Venezuela), 253 Mali, 22, 81

leadership, 5, 56–7, 65, 88–9, 117, 135, 188, malnutrition (malnourishment), 91–2
197 Mam (indigenous), 97–8, 100, 114
León (department), 137 Managua, 89, 138
de León, Javier, 100 Manhattan Minerals Corp., 193–6
Lesbian, Gay, Bi- and Trans-sexuals (lgbt), Mannix, Ron, 132–4
48, 61 mano dura, 44–5, 120
Letuama, 173–4 Manta U.S. air base, 214
Levenson, Deborah T., 89 mao, see Olancho Environmentalist
lgbt, see Lesbian, Gay, Bi- and Movement
Trans-sexuals Manitoba, 224–5
Liberal Party (Canada), 19–20, 22, 27, 103, manufacturing, 10–11, 16, 18–19, 27–8, 33,
142, 160, 176–7, 204–5, 240, 257, 39–40, 65, 72, 187, 198–9, 243, 249,
263, 274 281–2, 286
Liberal Party (Colombia), 150–1 maquiladoras, 33–4, 39–40, 58, 60, 64–5,
Liberal Party (Honduras), 32, 34–6, 39, 72–4, 76, 79–80, 91, 93, 121, 129,
44–5, 47, 82 279–80, 286
liberalization, 7, 10, 12–13, 15, 20–1, 23, 39, Mara-18 (m-18), 43–4, 90–1
120–1, 130–1, 179, 182, 218, 261–2, Mara Salvatrucha (ms / ms-13), 43–4, 90–1
279–1 marginalization, 75, 96, 108, 120, 186, 213,
liberation theology, 37–8, 46, 138, 219–20 269
libre Party, 82–3 Mariátegui, José Carlos, 186–8
license (exploitation), 66–9, 94, 108, 111, markets, 4–6, 14, 16, 46, 51, 77–8, 80, 90,
124, 159, 171, 196, 232 130, 140, 164, 184, 187, 244, 246, 274
Life Vision, 74–6 capital, 12, 187
Lima, 186, 188, 192–3, 204–5, 235, 270–1 domestic, 38
literacy, 46, 135 financial, 12
living well, 213–4 forces, 6–7, 262
Lobo Sosa, Porfirio “Pepe”, 45 free, 10, 12, 23–5, 39, 49, 79, 81, 151,
Lobo Sosa, Ramón, 74 249, 253, 255, 257, 262, 268
Local Committee in Defence of Life, 111 global, 27–8, 34, 38, 182, 186, 188, 245,
López, Alexander (Senator–Colombia), 167 285
López, Jorge, 106, informal, 217
López Obrador, Manuel, 281 international, 9, 191, 216, 241
Los Angeles, 91 labour, 11, 14, 154
Luckhardt, Ken, 162 liberalization, 7, 10, 12, 21, 29, 261
Luna, Óscar, 127 natural resource, 17
Lust, Jan, 200 reform, 190, 253, 255
Lyon Lake, 131 relations, 10–11, 14
Marmato, 169
mac, see Mining Association of Canada marn, see Ministerio de Ambiente y
Macas, Luis, 208, 215 Recursos Naturales
Machado, Maria Corina, 264 Marlin, 96–104, 109–17
Mackay, Cameron, 65, 78–9 martial law, 110
MacKay, Peter, 273 Martin, Paul, 19–20
Macuna, 173–4 Martinelli, Ricardo, 140–2
Maduro, Nicolás, 164–5, 211, 244, 248, 252, Martínez, Hernán, 170
258–9 Marx, Karl, 4, 14
Maduro, Ricardo, 39, 44 marxism, 86, 89
Marxist theory, 7–8, 14, 186 250

Matagalpa, 138 militancy, 2–3, 35, 37–8, 46, 89, 96, 108,
Mataquescuintla, 110–11 110, 112, 123, 125, 199, 205–6, 218
Matsés (indigenous), 202 militarization, 27–9, 32, 37, 42–5, 48, 83, 86,
Maverick, 66 107–10, 120, 144, 149, 151, 160, 181,
Maya, 85, 189–90, 200, 274, 281, 285
communities, 86, 97–8, 100, 108 military, 6, 32, 49–50, 62, 83, 119, 151, 162,
exclusion, 88–9 166, 168, 173, 178, 190–1, 220, 239,
-Kiché, 97–8 248, 274, 281
-Mam, 97–8, 114 aid, 2, 37
murder, 89–90, 254 bases, 36, 110, 214, 271–2, 275
peasants, 114–15 Canadian, 22, 272–3
-Q’eqchi, 104–5, 115–16 coup, 50, 55–6, 68, 81–2, 104, 247, 253,
racism, 90–1 258
Mcallister, Carlota, 85–6 para-, 22–3, 28–9, 48, 57, 86, 91, 97–8,
McArthur, Kevin, 105, 111 108–9, 115–16, 118, 144–5, 150, 152,
McKechnie, Leeann, 101 154–5, 158–61, 167, 172, 175, 179,
McNally, David, 5–6 181, 188–9, 272, 282, 285
mdgs, see United Nations Millennium power, 6, 22, 39
Development Goals regime, 34–5, 47, 57, 64, 104, 261
media, 18, 20, 25, 61–2, 69, 101, 130, 169, spending, 22, 272
209, 234, 240, 244, 249–50, 253, training, 36, 143–4, 272
256–7, 259, tribunal, 200
Medoro Resources, 169 violence, 7, 44, 61, 65, 86–90, 109, 120,
Meiksins Wood, Ellen, 5 152–4, 177, 179, 188–9, 219, 280
mem, see Ministerio de Energia y Minas Military Training and Cooperation Program,
Memorandum of Understanding (mou), 143–4, 272, 281
273–4 militias, 48, 90, 156
Menem, Carlos, 279 Mi Negra, 250
Mennonite Central Committee (ngo), 25 Mineral Potential Index (mpi), 193
mercury, 70, 122 Minga Social y Comunitaria
Mesa Agropecuaria y Popular de (Communitarian and Social
Interlocución y Acuerdos (Roundtable Cooperative Gathering), 157
for Dialogue and Agreement among minifundia, 90
Popular Agrarian Producers), 157–8 mining
Mesa Nacional frente a la Minería Metálica artisanal, 137–8, 150, 153, 157–63, 169,
de El Salvador (National Roundtable 171–2, 175, 179, 181, 199, 217, 239
Against Metallic Mining in El boom, 160, 182–5, 190, 207
Salvador), 126 green, 123
Meta, 165–8 laws, 45–6, 57, 65–9, 77–9, 93–6, 121–7,
Metal Mining Agency of Japan, 219 132–3, 140–1, 179–80, 191, 198,
Mexican Environmental Enforcement 206, 211–12, 217–18, 223–4, 226–8,
Agency, 280 231–9, 279
Mexico, 25, 28–9, 32–3, 41, 91, 93, 107–9, mega-, 110, 126–7, 201
129, 165, 168, 195, 202, 279–81, 286 open-pit, 26–7, 33, 45–6, 65–6, 69, 70–1,
Micheletti, Roberto, 32–3, 44–5, 47, 49–50, 131–4, 139, 140–1, 150, 171, 185,
52–5, 61–2, 64–5, 67, 77, 81 206–7, 278
migration, 10–11, 39 Mining Association of Canada (mac), 26,
migrants, 24, 83, 90–1, 107, 109, 129, 95, 116, 128
Index 383
Mining Association of El Salvador, 127 (Democratic Popular Movement—

Mining Chamber of Nicaragua, 137 mpd), 213
Mining Law 126 (Ley 126 de Minería, Movimiento Popular de Resistencia-12
Ecuador), 217, 232 de octubre (Popular Movement of
Mining Watch (ngo), 23, 101, 103, 171–3 Resistance – October 12), 121
Ministerio de Ambiente y Recursos Movimiento Renovador Sandinista
Naturales (Ministry of the (Sandinista Renovation Movement—
Environment and Natural mrs), 135
Resources—marn), 93 mpd, see Movimiento Popular Democrático
Ministerio de Energía y Minas (Ministry mpi, see Mineral Potential Index
of Energy and Mines—mem, Gu, mrs, see Movimiento Renovador Sandinista
temala), 93, 96–97, 99, 102 ms, see Mala Savatrucha
Mirador mine, 219 multinationals, see corporations,
Miranda, Julia, 174 multinational
Missanabie Cree, 236 Munck, Peter, 156
Mitsubishi, 219 murder, 19, 28, 44, 48, 56, 83, 85, 89–1,
mncs, see corporations, multinational 109–10, 123–4, 161, 177–8, 195, 202,
modernization, 7–8, 34, 78, 96, 103, 151, 254, 257, 261, 280, 286
214, 217
Moffett, Sébastien, 102 nafta, see North American Free Trade
Molina, Felix, 62, Agreement
Monge, Luis Alberto, 129 narcotics (see also, cartels), 22, 28, 32, 45,
Montesinos, Vladimiro, 190 91, 107, 109, 144, 151, 153–5, 275,
Monti, Mario 249 285
Mooers, Colin, 5–6 Nasralla, Salvador, 82
Moore, Jennifer, 23, 101, 227, 280 National Advancement Party (Guatemala),
Mora Solano, Sindy, 130 90
Morales, Evo, 246 National Defence Canada (dnd), 19, 21,
Morales, Jaime, 136 143, 273 284
Morales, Johana, 105 National Democratic Institute (U.S.), 261,
Morales Carazo, René, 40 265
Morales García, Oscar, 111, 118 National Endowment for Democracy (ned),
moratorium, 69, 79, 93–6, 127, 131–2, 171, 261
225 National Federation of Artisanal Miners of
Morin, Marie-Lucie, 273 Peru, 199
Moronoa Santiago, 218 National Federation of Mining,
mou, see Memorandum of Understanding Metallurgical, Iron and Steel Workers
Movimiento Ambientalista de Olancho, see of Peru, 194
Olancho Environmentalist Movement. nationalism, 3, 43, 155–6, 248, 252–3
Movimiento Esperanza Liberal (Liberal nationalization, 128, 187, 209–10, 245
Hope Movement—mel) 45, National Mining Agency (Colombia), 174
Movimiento Indígena Ecuatoriano National Mining Company (Ecuador), 232
(Ecuadorian Indigenous Movement), National Mining Company—Minercol
223 (Colombia), 160
Movimiento Mesoamericano Contra la National Mining Company Minercol
Minería Metálica (Mesoamerican Workers Union, 160
Movement against Metallic Mining), National Mining Dialogue (Ecuador),
125 228–31
Movimiento Popular Democrático National Mining Forum (Canada), 95
National Party (Honduras), 32, 34, 38–9, occupations, 35, 108–9, 168, 194–5, 280
45, 82 October Revolution, 85
National Roundtable (Canada), 229–30, Oda, Bev, 67, 81, 206–7
234–5 oil, see also petroleum, 8–9, 16, 26–7,
National Security Agency (nsa), 211 39–40, 48, 94, 107–8, 148–51, 157,
National Union of Workers (Unete), 254–5 159–69, 175–85, 198, 202, 210–11,
Natural Resources Canada (nrcan), 128, 214–18, 245, 246, 250–1, 257, 273–4,
211–12, 224, 227, 229–30, 234–6 280–1, 285
nature, 138 Oja Jay, Dru, 30
Mother, 215 Ojeda Riofrío, Francisco, 194–5
rights, 213–14, 231 Olancho Environmentalist Movement
ned, see National Endowment for (mao), 45
Democracy oligarchy, 63, 119–20
neoliberalism, 11–12, 14–15, 27–9, 32, 38, ombudsman, 184–5, 201
41–2, 76, 91, 120, 129, 145, 150, 153, opposition
183, 200–1, 215, 244, 247–8, 255, 258, armed, 88
261, 268–9, 275, 285 community, 3, 22, 26–7, 48, 66, 75, 122,
Netherlands Institute for Multiparty 126–7, 138, 162–3, 175, 201
Democracy (nimd), 268–9 counter-, 23, 94, 134–5, 159, 199-200,
New Democratic Party of Canada, 20 204-5, 220, 236, 270-1, 280
New Gold Mining Co., 280 indigenous, 48, 61–4, 86–88, 92, 112,
New Republicant Movement, see also 141–2, 162–3, 173–4, 198–202, 219,
Frente Amplio, 107 to mining, 86, 94, 97, 104–5, 112–13,
new world order, 261 122–6, 132–3, 138–9, 141, 161, 163,
Ngäbe-Buglé (indigenous), 140–2 168, 173, 175, 204–6, 210, 220–1, 281,
ngos, see non-governmental organizations 286
Nicaragua, 19, 36–8, 41, 79, 119, 122, 129, to neoliberalism, 144–5, 258–9
131, 135–47 to oil extraction, 168–9
Nieto López, Jaime Rafael, 150, 154, 172–3 political, 48, 51, 54–5, 60, 70–1, 83,
nimd, see Netherlands Institute for 130–1, 135, 139, 164–5, 190, 195,
Multiparty Democracy 249–50, 254, 256, 258, 261, 263–7,
Noboa, Álvaro, 213 269, 274
Nolan, Chief Glen, 236 popular, 48, 60–4, 90, 92, 116, 131,
non-governmental organizations (ngos), 134–5, 198, 211, 220, 232, 278, 282
Canadian, 81, 101, 115 to privatization, 63
corporate, 180 Oquelí Veliz, Telma Yolanda, 105–6
environmental, 125–6, 219 Orellana, Ángel, 47Organization of
foreign funding of, 263–4 American States (oas), 32, 48–50, 52,
religious, 25 55–6, 59, 78, 80, 82–3, 101–2, 138,
Noriega, Roger, 264, 271 235, 266
North American Free Trade Agreement Ortega, Daniel, 135–9, 246
(nafta), 279–81 ortodoxos, 125
Novontar, S.A., 131 Otavalo, 214–15
Nueva Segovia, 139, 170 Ottawa, 48–51
ownership, 14, 75, 104, 107, 153, 245
oas, see Organization of American States
Obama, Barack, 32, 249 pac, see Partido Anticorrupción
Obando, Juan Carlos, 134 Pacetti, Massimo, 103
Obando y Bravo, Cardinal Miguel, 135–6 Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement
Index 385
– New Country, 208, 213–14 Pellegrini, Mayte, 142

Pacheco de la Espriella, Abel, 129, 131 Pérez, Gregoria, 114
pacification, 38–42 Pérez–Balladares, Ernesto, 140
Pacific Rim Mining, 121–7 Pérez Molina, Otto, 92, 94, 104, 107, 110,
Pacific Rubiales Energy (pre), 164–8, 202 254
Paley, Dawn, 75, 105–6 periphery, 7
Panama, 37, 97, 119, 140–5, 261 Perla Jr., Héctor, 125
pani, see Patronato Nacional de la Infancia Peru, 6, 25–32, 148, 164, 180–207, 210, 212,
Panitch, Leo, 30 218, 240, 268, 270–1, 274–5, 286
Pantin, Ronald, 164–5 PeruCan, 205–6
Petaquilla Minerals, 141–2
Pare, Robert, 165 Petare, 244
Paris Club, 237 PetroCanada, 245
Partido Anticorrupción (Anti-Corruption PetroCaribe, 246
Party—pac), 82 Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (pdvsa), 164–5
Partido Comunista Colombiano petroleum, 150, 180, 251
(Colombian Communist Party), 151 Petrominerales Ltd., 164, 166
Partido Liberación Nacional (National petro-state, 250
Liberation Party—pln), 129 Physicians for Human Rights, 98
Partido Liberal Constitucionalista Pierina gold mine, 196–7, 202
(Constitutionalist Liberal Party— Piura, 193–5
Nicaragua), 135 Placer Dome, 131, 245
Partido Patriota (Patriotic Party), 107–8 Plan Colombia, 32, 151, 179
Partido Unidad Social Cristiana (Social Plan Panamex, 143–4
Christian Unity Party), 129 Plan Puebla Panamá, 97,
Pascua Lama, 278–9 plantations, 33, 35, 42–3, 91
Pastor, Wilson, 237–8 pln, see Partido Liberación Nacional—pln
Pastrana, Andrés, 151 Plurinational Parliament, 215
Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (National pnc, see Policía Nacional Civil
Children’s Trust—pani), 78 Policía Nacional Civil (National Civil
Patria Roja (Peru), 204, Police), 120
pcp-sl, see Sendero Luminoso Policy Potential Index (ppi), 193
pdac, see Prospectors and Developers political economy, 29, 34, 39, 64, 86, 91, 107,
Association of Canada 129, 152, 186, 192, 246, 282–3
pdvsa, see Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. pollution, 28, 70, 126–7, 166, 185
peasant, 6, 14, 28, 70, 107, 130, 159, 202, Polochic Valley, 109–10
213, 272 polyarchy, 91, 261
communities 10, 179, 185, 190–1, 193, Poole, Deborah, 189
201, 214, 218–20 poor,
cooperatives, 40 Popular Tribunal Against Extractive Policies
dispossessed, 10–11, 39–40, 90, 109, in Colombia, 166–7
144, 150, 153–6, 161,172, 175, 181, Port-au-Prince, 246–7
188, 282, 285 Portillo, Alfonso, 92, 109
militancy, 35, 62–3, 115, 120, 151, 203, Portugal, 6
222 poverty, see also poor, 10–11, 25, 39, 41,
mobilization, 12, 35, 60, 157–8, 163, 194 45–6, 50–1, 83–4, 91–2, 97–8, 107,
movement, 37, 42–3, 61, 188, 201 113, 135, 143, 150, 153–4, 159, 182–3,
murders, 48, 59, 109–10, 152, 161, 189 198, 207, 216, 247–8, 251, 257, 282
organizations, 37, 43, 46, 88, 92 ppi, see Policy Potential Index
pre, see Pacific Rubiales Energy race, 186–9, 219,

Precautionary Measure, 100–2 racism, 9–11, 89–90, 117, 186–9, 208,
Préval, René, 246–7 215, 284
prison, 44, 109–10, 215 Radio Victoria, 123
privatization, 9, 15, 39, 43, 46, 63, 78, 108–9, Radius Gold, 105–6
120–1, 129, 131, 151, 190, 214, 280 Ramírez Cuellar, Francisco, 180
Privy Council Office, 132–3, 247 Rancho Grande, 138–9
Procuraduría para la Defensa de Derecho rape, 85, 113–15, 130, 176, 189, 208, 250
Humanos (Attorney General for rbc, see banks, Royal Bank of Canada
the Defence of Human Rights–El rcmp, see Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Salvador), 127 Reagan, Ronald, 36, 135
profit, 3, 5, 8–11, 17, 19, 21, 59, 149, 177, recession, 12, 15, 64, 83
191, 204, 210, 232, 234, 239, 242, 271 Red Latinoamericana y del Caribe para la
279, 284–5 Democracia (Latin American and
Programa Venezolano de Educacion-Accion Caribbean Network for Democracy),
en Derechos Humanos (provea), 265 261
proletariat, 11, 14, 39, 107, 243 Red de Mujeres de Matagalpa (Network of
lumpen-, 43 Women of Matagalpa), 138
ProNicaragua, see Agencia de Promoción Red Muqui, 203
de Inversiones de Nicaragua Red Sinti Techán (Sinti Techán Network),
property, 6, 12–15, 20–1, 24, 33, 71, 75–6, 121
87, 104, 114, 122, 131, 153, 161–2, red tape, 11, 190
168, 173, 176–7, 190–1, 224, 245, 284 Reeder, Neil, 51–60, 67–8, 76–8, 102, 132
Prospectors and Developers Association of redistribution, 35, 42–3, 75, 209, 211, 252
Canada (pdac), 19, 97, 102, 128, 137, referendum, 47, 57, 117, 130, 163, 194–5,
175, 230, 235–6 203, 208–9, 213, 264
provea, see Programa Venezolano de Regalado, María Luisa, 72–3
Educacion-Accion en Derechos Regional Council of Indigenous Authorities
Humanos of the Western Highlands, 112,
Proyecto de Asistencia Técnica para la Reglamento General Sustitutivo del
Gestión Ambiental (Project for Reglamento General de la Ley de
Technical Assistance in Environmental Minería (Replacement General
Management, Peru), 217 Regulation of the Mining Law, Peru),
Proyecto para el Desarrollo Minero y 217
Control Ambiental (Project for Mining regulation, 10–11, 13, 26, 32, 45, 65, 67,
Development and Environmental 98–9, 129, 174, 179, 193, 206, 217,
Control, Peru), 217 232, 234, 279
Public Safety Canada, 281 Reina, Roberto, 39, 44
Pueblo Viejo mine, 281–2 Reinel Restrepo, Father José, 169
Puerto Gaitán, 166–7 relocation, 71–3, 117, 172, 193–4
Puno region, 199 Remedios, 170
pusc, see Partido Unidad Social Cristiana Rénique, Gerardo, 188–90
Reporters Without Borders, 48
Quechua, 203 repression, 10, 25, 42, 47, 49–61, 64, 81, 86,
Quiché, 107 88–9, 96, 104–6, 112–15, 124–5, 138,
Quichua, 213–15 141, 157–61, 168, 176–7, 181, 188–9,
Quimsacocha, 238 197–8, 215, 226, 233, 242, 251, 254,
Quintanilla, Father Luis, 123 257, 280, 284–5
Quiport, 234–5 Responsible Mining Council, 229
Index 387
restitution, 178 Sandoval, Ernesto, 44

revolt, 36, 141, 212–13 San Félix, 141
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia San Francisco, 122
(farc), 151–2, 155–7, 165, 172–3, San Isidro, 122–3
253, 273 San José del Golfo, 105–6
Reyes Romero, Antonio, 106 San Juan (Argentina), 279
Rice, Condoleeza, 264–5 San Juan de Kañaris, 203
Richani, Nazih, 153–4 San Lorenzo valley, 194
Rights and Democracy (ngo), 262 San Marcos (Guatemala), 97–8
Ríos, Sergio, 137 San Marcos (Peru), 193, 201
Ríos Montt, Efraín (Gen.), 109 San Martin, 65–6, 70–1
risk, 3, 99, 112, 165, 169, 172, 179, 201, 219, San Miguel Ixtahuacán, 100, 114
221, 238, 264 San Pedro Ayampuc, 105
Rivera, Marcelo, 123 San Pedro Sula, 39, 72
Rivera, Ramiro, 123 San Rafael Las Flores, 105, 110–11, 118
Rivero, Jacobo, 243 San Sebastián, 126–7
rmm, see Red de Mujeres de Matagalpa Santa Rosa de Copán, 72
Robinson, William I., 91, 261 Santander (department–Colombia), 170–2
Rodríguez Aguilar, Amadeo de Jesus, 111 Santi, Marlon, 215
Rodríguez Becerra, Manuel, 170 Santos, Juan Carlos, 169
Rodríguez Echeverría, Miguel, 129 Santos, Juan Manuel, 152, 154, 156–8, 163,
Rogge, Malcom, 230–1 171, 176, 254, 274
rondas campesinas, 201–4 Santos, Samuel, 139–40
Rosa Chávez, Herman, 125–6 Santurbán, 170–1
Rosales, Manuel, 250 Páramo, 171
Ross, Oakland, 257 San Xavier mine, 280
Rotonda, Alberto, 110–11 saps, see structural adjustment
Roux, Rhina, 14–15 Saudi Arabia, 37
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (rcmp), 21, scfaid, see Standing Committee on Foreign
143, 280–1 Affairs and International Development
royalties, 17, 93–4, 99, 103, 121–2, 136, 154, Schellenberger, Gary, 255
179–80, 187, 191, 198, 205, 211, 232, Schnoor, Steven, 115
237–8 schools, 26, 45, 92, 220, 249
Rudas, Guillermo, 180 School of the Americas, 36
Rural Vigilance Cooperatives (Convivirs), scorched earth campaign, 89–90, 104
156 Scotiabank, see banks, Bank of Nova Scotia
Segovia, 169–70
Sabaneta, 248 Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), 188–91
sabotage, 214–6 Servicio Geológico Colombiano
Saca, Antonio, 121, 125 (Colombian Geological Service /
Saca González, Elías, 123–4 Ingeominas), 174
Sacmuj (indigenous), 114 sfu, see Simon Fraser University
San Albino-Murra, 139 Shaikh, Anwar, 11
San Andres, 71–2 shareholders, 4, 105, 111, 133
San Agustín, 244 Sharma, Rafael, 148
Sánchez, Álvaro, 112 Shisko, Andrew, 237, 239–40, 267, 270
Sánchez Anchochea, Diego, 129–30 shootings, 106, 114, 123–4, 198
Sandinistas, see Frente Sandinista de Shuar (indigenous), 218–19, 235
Liberación Nacional (fsln) Silvera, Omayra, 141
Simon Fraser University (sfu), 26 Súmate, 264

Sindicato de Trabajadores Mineros de Summit of the Americas, 143, 249
Segovia y Remedios (Union of Mining supply chains, 148
Workers of Segovia and Remedios), Supreme Court, 47, 57, 60, 66, 82, 133–5,
169–70 139, 141
Singapore, 140–1 Syria, 22
Sipakense, 98, 113–14, 117
Siria Valley, 70–1, 114 Tahltan Nation, 95, 225
Siria Valley Defense Committee, 70–1 Tahoe Resources, 105, 110–11, 115, 118
Skye Resources, 104–5, 115–16 tailings, 98–9, 186
slavery, 5, 186, 243 Taiwan, 37
snc Lavalin, 234 takeover, 16, 131, 161
Snowden, Edward, 136, 211 Talisman, 149, 168–9, 202
social cleansing, 38, 44, 47, 120, 219 Tamayo, Padre, 44
social movements, 28, 44, 60–1, 69, 111–12, Tambogrande, 193–200,
125–6, 143, 152, 212, 220, 225, 254, Tambogrande Defence Front, 194–5
260, 268, 271, 285 Tanimuca, 173–4
social spending, 83–4 Tauramena, 168
socialism, 85, 136, 209, 246, 248–9 taxes, 8, 12, 17, 39, 69, 74, 121, 136–7, 154,
twenty-first century, 208–9, 246 162, 180, 184, 191, 193, 196, 198, 205,
soldiers, 36–7, 48, 82, 109, 113, 115, 173, 211, 231–4, 237–8, 279, 282
239, 266 Taylor, Lewis, 201–2
Solway Group, 104–5 tca, see Administrative Disputes Tribunal
Somos Defensores (We Are Defenders), 178 technology, 21, 95, 107, 148, 157, 172,
Somozas, 135–6 174–5, 226, 244, 261, 275
Sosa, Milagros, 186 Tegucigalpa, 32–5, 39, 42, 44, 51–62, 66, 70,
South Korea, 141 76–7, 81, 83
Spain, 265 Tegucigalpa–San José Accord, 33, 51–5, 57,
speculators, 153, 226 76, 81
standard of living, 7–8, 11, 17, 24–5, 59–60, telecommunications, 46, 56, 121, 130, 134,
142–3, 180–1 136, 148, 151
Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Telfer, Ian, 103
International Development (scfaid), Telus, 121–2
23, 50, 53, 73, 103, 247, 255, 263–5, Tenesaca, Delfín, 216
279 terrorism, 28, 37, 111, 154–5, 168, 189–90,
Stebbings, Rupert, 165 215–16, 253, 271, 285
Stewart, Veronika, 25–7 corporate, 116, 123–4, 150, 195
Strategic Environmental Assessment, 126 counter-, 22, 38, 189, 271–2
strike, 35, 86, 92, 108, 130, 136–7, 157–8, state, 38, 48, 89–90, 152, 155, 164, 272
163, 165–7, 178, 192, 194–5, 201, 280 textiles, 33, 65, 77
structural adjustment (saps), 7, 39–40, 90, Tintaya-Marquiri, 193
129, 183 Toledo, Alejandro, 192, 200–1, 205
students, 35, 37, 46, 52, 61, 89, 115, 189 Tongling Non-Ferrous Metals, 238
Suárez, Luis, 222–3 Toronto, 17, 97, 116, 137, 161, 164, 230, 234
Suazo Córdova, Rafaél, 36 Toronto Stock Exchange (tse), 165–6, 221,
subjugation, 6, 89 245
subsidies, 12, 26, 46, 70, 113, 122, 131, 218, Totonicapán, 108
246, 249, 251 Toumani Touré, Amadou, 81
Sumak Kawsay, 213–14 tourism, 33–4, 39–40, 46, 58, 60, 64–5,
Index 389
74–6, 80, 91, 129, 144, 153 Unifor, 166–7

trade, Unión Nacional Opositora (United National
agreements, 19, 23, 34, 46, 59–60, 64, Opposition) 135
76–82, 105, 114, 121–2, 129, 131, 136, Unión Patriótica (Patriotic Union—up,
140, 149, 152, 175–8, 184, 197–8, 237, Colombia), 151
246–7, 255, 273, 279, 281 unions, 35, 37, 40, 46, 52, 56, 61–2, 65,
free, 7, 19, 23, 34, 39, 46, 58–60, 64, 78, 71–3, 82, 86, 89, 116, 130, 135, 151–3,
80–2, 121–2, 131, 136, 140, 149, 152, 160–2, 166–70, 177–80, 189, 214,
175, 178, 181, 184, 197, 240, 247, 255, 254, 281
273, 279, 281 United Nations Forestry Forum, 170
Transat Holiday, 76 United Fruit Company (ufc), 34–5, 87
transition, 34, 36, 38, 86, 91, 107, 118, 120, United Left coalition (Peru), 189
135, 151 United Nations (u.n.), 33, 41, 48, 58, 75,
transnationals, see corporations, 134, 235
transnational U.N. Declaration on the Rights of
trc, see Truth and Reconciliation Indigenous Peoples, 199–200
Commission United Nations Development Program
Tremblay, Marianick, 127, (undp), 41
Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo United Nations Human Development Index
(Administrative Disputes Tribunal— (hdi), 41
tca), 132–5 United Nations Millennium Development
Trinidad mine, 280 Goals (mdgs), 41
Trojan Horse, 179–81 United Nations University for Peace 134
Trudeau, Justin, 20, 142 United States (U.S.), 3, 5, 9, 11–12, 16, 21,
Trujillo (Honduras), 64–5, 74–6 30, 33, 35–7, 39–40, 43, 46, 49, 52, 55,
Trujillo, Rafael, 257 83, 86–7, 90–2, 97, 105, 107–9, 122,
Truth and Reconciliation Commission 129–30, 133, 136–7, 139, 144, 149,
(trc), 152, 188, 198, 204, 211, 214, 249–52,
Honduras, 56–8 256, 258, 261, 263–5, 268, 271–3, 279
Peru, 189 Universidad de Azuay, 236
tse, see Toronto Stock Exchange Universidad de Cuenca, 236
Tufts University, 99 University of British Columbia (ubc), 26,
236
ubc, see University of British Columbia up, see Unión Patriótica—up, Colombia)
ues, see Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña upi, see Unidad Plurinacional de las
ufc, see United Fruit Company Izquierdas
un, see United Nations Uribe, Álvaro, 28, 152, 154–8, 160–2, 176–8,
Unda, Mario, 214 254, 273
undp, see United Nations Development Uribe, Juan Gabriel, 174
Program Urkidi, Leire, 113–14
Unete, see National Union of Workers Uruguay, 87, 107, 157, 168, 203, 214
Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña (Salvadoran U.S., see United States
Ecological Unity), 124, 127 U.S.–cafta, see U.S.-Central American
Unidad Plurinacional de las Izquierdas Free Trade Agreement
(Plurinational Unity of the Lefts, upi), U.S.-Central American Free Trade
216 Agreement (U.S.–cafta), 121–2, 124,
Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional 130–1, 136
Guatemalteca (Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Unity), 89 Van Kesteren, Dave, 50–1, 103, 247, 255
Van Loan, Peter, 101 World Movement for Democracy, 261, 265
Vannessa Ventures, 131–2, 245 World Trade Organization (wto), 79
Vásquez Velásquez, Romeo Orlando World Vision, 207
(General), 47, 56 wto, see World Trade Organization
Vaupés (department), 173–4
Veladero Mine, 279 Yagenova, Simona Violetta, 108–9
Velásquez, Teresa, 227 Yaigojé-Apaporis national park, 173–4
Venezuela, 2, 20, 29, 46, 49–50, 100, 103, Yamana Gold mine, 17–18, 24, 67, 279
136, 156, 164–5, 168, 209–12, 243–75 Yauli, 193
National Assembly, 263–4 Yelich, Lynne, 82
Venturo, Pablo, 137 Yoc, Florencio, 113–14
Via Campesina, 42–3 Younger, Paul, 71
Vicco, 193
Villacís, César, 220 Zacapa, 108,
Villacorta, Brenda, 63–4 Zamora, Ezequiel, 248
Villáran, Susan, 205 Zamora Chinchipe, 218, 239
Villeda, Mauricio, 82 Zarruk, Carlos, 137
Zelaya, Manuel, 29, 32–3, 45–57, 61–9, 76,
wages, 10–11, 33, 35, 45–6, 65, 78, 89–90, 79–83, 103, 133, 209, 234, 247, 253
154, 166, 170, 280 Zeta cartel, 109
Wampis, 198–9 Zibechi, Raúl, 107–8, 157, 203, 214
Warintz, 218–19 Zulia, 253
Washington, 35, 57, 101, 216, 239, 262 Zwarteveen, Magreet, 186
Washington Consensus, 216–17, 262
waste, 9–10, 104, 131, 169
water,
access, 91, 99, 126, 171, 201
contamination, 66–7, 69–71, 98–101,
104–5, 113, 122, 167, 172, 194
fresh, 9, 27, 171, 207, 278
governance, 94, 186, 214, 231, 237
privatization, 108
resources, 18, 40, 122, 139, 172
scarcity, 12, 186, 194, 202
stress, 185–6
Weisbrot, Mark, 250, 258
Whitman, Ann, 87,
Whitman, Ed, 87,
who, see World Health Organization
Wikileaks, 204, 211
Williams, Mark, 185–6
Wolf, Sonja, 120–1,
women, 10–11, 42–3, 60–3, 71–3, 115,
138–9, 167, 176, 188–9, 196–7, 203
Working Group on Natural Resources and
Biodiversity, 225
World Bank, 6–8, 12, 24, 39, 45, 68, 124,
129, 192, 217–18
World Health Organization (who), 70, 98–9

Todd Gordon, Jeffery R. Webber - Blood of Extraction - Canadian Imperialism in Latin America-Fernwood Publishing (2016) 2

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Todd Gordon, Jeffery R. Webber - Blood of Extraction - Canadian Imperialism in Latin America-Fernwood Publishing (2016) 2

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Blood of

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

Editing: Candida Hadley

Published by Fernwood Publishing

Fernwood Publishing Company Limited gratefully acknowledges the financial support of

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Part ii central America — 31

4. Dispossession and Security in Central America — 119

Part iii the Andes — 147

6. Agonies of Mineral Dependency in Peru — 182

7. Tapping the Veins of Ecuador — 208

9. An Exercise in Cynicism: “Democracy” and “Security” in the Andes — 260

Part iv Conclusion — 277

Jeffery R. Webber dedicates this book to

contemporary expressions of Canadian foreign policy begs serious consideration of

Imperialism without Colonies

Whereas colonialism means direct rule of a people by a foreign state,

In a complimentary refinement of this definition, which focuses our attention

Profits made by transnational companies operating in Latin America

clear, despite Canadian government justifications to the contrary, the natural

Ecology and Racism

of dispossessed peasants, primarily women, in search of work, despite extremely

direct investment (fdi), deregulation of industry, and strengthening of guarantees

Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

scale. Harvey, in a vivid if perhaps rather too all-encompassing fashion, includes

Each of these traits of the neoliberal phase of capitalism on a world-scale has

The Expansion of Canadian Capital

Finance and Mining

The share of [Canadian] fdi going through international financial centers

Canada’s mining industry, meanwhile, is the largest in the world. Approximately

Barrick and Yamana’s combined “community investment” spending—part of

Canada’s Strategic Engagement with Latin America

Capital and the State

capital in particular: the creation and reinforcement of those conditions conducive

from signing a security cooperation agreement with Colombia in April 2012,

assets…will be marshalled on behalf of the private sector,” with a particular focus

Corporate Social Responsibility

Promoting Effective Corporate Social Responsibility in the Andes). In the case

Extractive Commodities and Militarized Neoliberalism

Structure of the Book

imperialism, however this use is often accompanied by flawed empirical analysis

particularly in mining, maquilas, and tourism. Those material interests help to

Outside the confines of the Liberal, National, and authoritarian spheres of

its membership repressed.”112 The clampdown increased in intensity throughout

Cold War Counterinsurgency

Honduras was visited…by counterinsurgency and state terrorist methods

Callejas introduced the first of three structural adjustment packages (saps)

These lands were concentrated in the most resource-rich parts of the

institutions regarding the pace and character of neoliberal reform, macroeconomic

Likewise, the figures of national income distribution depicted in Table I illus-

Table I: Distribution of National Income in Honduras

Year Poorest 40% Next 30% 20% Below Richest 10%

the energy of the dispossessed is channeled into movements demanding

or intimidated into submission with death threats.170 This militarization of politics

The Zelaya Interregnum

in September 2007 introduced measures to prevent further ecological collapse,

Venezuela…offered to buy Honduran bonds worth [US]$100m, whose

Nonetheless, as history has indicated, it is hardly necessary for Latin American

Conservative evangelicals and Catholics—including Opus Dei, a formi-

According to the country’s leading human rights organization, Committee of

According to the United Nations, Honduras continues to have the highest

Ottawa and the Democratic Coup

The Tegucigalpa-San José Accord